


Hallway, honey

by ioanaisbored



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kisses, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is Whipped, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is a Little Shit, M/M, No Angst, Slow Burn, Soft Huang Ren Jun, Soft Lee Jeno, Strangers to Lovers, art kid jeno, renjun is trying his best, renjun wants to be a baker, soft guys pursuing their dreams and being chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ioanaisbored/pseuds/ioanaisbored
Summary: In which Renjun has forgotten what it means to be young, careless and courageous and has quietly locked himself in his room for the most part, trying to process the feelings of growing up. But while figuring out his life, his college courses and his career path, he rediscovers other things, like the value of a good friendship, the excitement of love and the taste of sweets over a nice cup of tea.orThrough their small, silly bookclub, Renjun meets Jeno, and together they practice being human, as uncomfortable and imperfect that is.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 74
Kudos: 172





	1. cold season - this is only the beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: hello! If you'd like to see snippets of new works/ behind the scene stuff from all my stories, follow my writing Instagram account @yellowdiarypages!! :)

Mark has told Donghyuck over the phone that there are two paths to get to his and Renjun’s apartment; both by subway. He explained that you can either change the route hallway through, which would be a lot faster, or you can take the longer route, and go straight from his apartment to their apartment.

Over the phone, Donghyuck has said that he might as well opt for the longer one, the forty minute one, because he fears he won’t be able to remember where to take the second subway from. Mark has sighed andtold him that he’ll just send for Renjun to come and pick him and show him the way.

“No, I don’t want to bother him,” Donghyuck tells Mark.

“Don’t worry, he has a lot of free time on his hands.”

It doesn’t bother Renjun to put on a pair of jeans and wrap his scarf tightly around his neck and mouth to pick Donghyuck up; he actually enjoys the opportunity to get out of their small apartment for a change of scenery. He tells Mark goodbye, locks back their door when he leaves and rushes down three flights of stairs, exiting the old apartment building. Because it’s windy and cold, he lets out a small sound of displeasure, muffled by the scarf, and walks faster on the alleyway with the leafless trees that connects their building to the subway station. The leafless trees swing around their branches, looking like boney hands. Renjun shivers.

He rushes down the subway stairs as well, takes his card out, scans it, and waits on the platform.

He pushes down the scarf from his face. The subway station has a specific smell of dust and something else that enters his lungs.

Renjun is on the subway in less than five minutes since leaving his place. He sits down and takes out a book from his linen bag as they start moving. There aren’t many people inside.

He reads a few pages, with the background noise of metal railways and the voice over the speakers announcing the stations. He listens to that five times, counting it in his head, and at the sixth one he puts his bookmark back in and exists the subway.

He climbs another set of stairs, and waits on a different platform. And on that subway that he got on, he does the same. Reads just a few pages, breathing in the dusty smells, letting himself be shaken slightly.

He leaves the station with a satisfied smile on his face. He likes the subway. Though his smile dies out a little once he’s again hit with the gloomy weather.

Having been to Donghyuck’s place once before that, he remembers where the building is, though he is not that sure about the actual apartment.

The wind even gets between his backside and coat, sending goose bumps all over his skin. He picks up his pace. It takes him a few minutes to walk through the big, wide and somehow almost empty parking lot in front of the apartment building. Almost as big as a supermarket parking lot, just a different shade of gray than the sidewalks. Renjun stops to look up at the sky - getting ready to rain, or to snow, also a shade of dusty grey. He walks with his hands in his coat pockets and his chin buried in his scarf.

Before climbing the entrance concrete stairs, he takes some good steps back to look up and down the whole building. It’s definitely the right place, he thinks, this parking lot is really something that sticks with you. No trees, so nothing. Just a big, wide, gray space where cars sleep. Like a desert. He remembers.

He scans all the balconies, the windows, until his neck cramps.

Oh, there’s a bike in one of the balconies. That must be it.

It must be Donghyucks’.

Above the bike is a string full of laundry. Donghyuck should better bring those in, he thinks, or it will rain on his clothes soon.

He counts the floors with his finger and when he’s got it, he makes way for the stairs, just as someone is opening the door to leave. Renjun quickly slips inside and stands in the slightly dark hallway to twist his neck around a few times and scan his surroundings. It’s somewhat familiar.

He continues turning and cracking his neck, every time with a half pleasure, half pain noise.

He walks up all six flights of stairs and rings the bell at the door that he remembers should be Donghyucks’. There is a neon above his head that is turning on and off constantly, a movement sensor type. Renjun plays with that for a few moments as he waits, staying still and then moving suddenly, just to hear the click sound it makes every time.

Then the door is opened. But only a little bit; the chain lock is still on.

“Hey, it’s me, Renjun,“ he greets, trying to peep inside the apartment. Because of his movements, the neon stays on. Only with a dim light.

“Who?”

“Renjun?” he repeats, sounding less sure this time. “I came to pick you up for our book club meeting. Mark told you this morning?”

“What’d you say?”

Renjun blinks a few times, looking at the door.

“The book club?” he says, like a question, not a statement, but he’s getting confused.

The neon turns off with a click. Renjun sits in darkness for a few moments, before the door is closed shut completely. It makes Renjun flinch and the neon to turn back on.

He looks around at all the other doors on that floor. This might not be Donghyucks’ place, after all. He should’ve asked Mark for better directions before leaving.

“You’re a friend of Donghyuck’s?”

Now the door is opened completely, no more chain lock. Pressing his whole body weight against it is a boy who is not Donghyuck. He’s tall and bending his neck to look down at Renjun because of that.

“Yes,” Renjun replies, hesitating, a bit intimidated. “I’m supposed to meet him here.”

The tall boy nods. He’s really big, like a bear. And he takes up space in the doorframe.

“He’s not here.”

“He’s not?”

The neon flicks off again. The tall boy shimmies his shoulders until the neon picks up on his movements and turns back on.

Renjun looks around again, but nothing from the dark, generic grey hallway gives away any answers for the questions flowing in his mind.

“He’s not.”

Renjun blinks a few times again. He can only hear distant talking in the other apartments.

“He went out to buy ladyfingers,” the boy says.

“Oh.”

Renjun shows a little smile, half of it covered by his scarf.

Then he looks at the boy in front of him again. He has a hoodie on, slumped against the opened door, looking down at him. He’s more than a head taller than Renjun, hair pushed all back effortlessly. Dark brown, it might even be long enough to put in a little bun at the top of the head. He resembles one of those brune bear in a forest. His whole appearance looks a bit messy but strong, and he’s staring at him with unsettling eyes. They remind Renjun of those painting that stare at you no matter where you stand in the room. It doesn’t help that he’s so much taller.

There’s a pencil in his hand, which he keeps playing with, making Renjun’s eyes instinctively stick to his fingers.

And then he sees that he’s wearing big, checkered, colorful pajama pants. Barefoot.

“I’m his roommate,” the pajama boy says.

Renjun has never been informed on the existence of a roommate. He wasn’t there when he first visited.

“Oh. What’s your name?” he asks into his scarf.

“What’d you say?”

“What...your name?”

Renjun blinks again quickly, shaking his head a bit.

“Oh, my name? I’m Jeno.”

He switches the hand he’s holding the pen in and stretches out the other one to shake Renjuns’. Jeno with the fluffy pajama pants looks expectantly at him as they’re shaking hands, as if Renjun has forgotten something obvious. But he can’t think of anything. He must have a somewhat dumb, confused face, because Jeno keeps looking at him funny.

“Well, what’s _your_ name?” Donghyuck’s roommate asks.

Renjun blinks at him a few times. He doesn’t really know what to say. He almost laughs.

“It’s _Renjun_ ,” he says, emphasized, as if it isn’t the third time he introduces himself. Does he not hear him properly? He pulls the scarf a bit away from his mouth.

Jeno looks down at him and nods with a little “oh”, meaning that he’s understood. He’s started swinging lightly from side to side, holding his feet in place and gripping the door knob tightly. As he’s swinging, the door is creaking. That continuous movement alone is enough to keep the neon on.

There’s a couple moments of silence. The hallway is cold, but not as much as outside. Inside, though there isn’t any harsh wind, it’s damp and smells of mold. Donghyuck’s apartment must be a lot warmer, considering Jeno’s lack of socks or even house slippers.

Even his feet are big, now that Renjun takes a second look at them.

“You can come inside and wait for Donghyuck and his ladyfingers.”

Renjun’s hand goes out of his pocket to hold it in the space between them, signaling that there’s no need. In any other scenario, he would’ve accepted, but there’s something about Donghyuck’s roommate that makes him wary.

“No, that’s alright, thank you. I can wait here.”

“You sure?” he’s still slightly swinging with the door, and the door still creaks. “The shop’s not that close from here. It might take a while.”

Renjun shakes his head and says that’s it’s alright. There’s another moment of silence, a little uncomfortable. He wonders exactly how long it will take Donghyuck to come back.

“Do you know what Donghyuck’s doing with the ladyfingers?” Jeno asks.

“Oh. Yeah, they’re for me, actually. I’m making tiramisu tonight.”

At that, the pajama boy stills with the door knob in his hand. His eyes slowly widen, like he can’t believe his ears.

“Tiramisu? Really?”

Renjun smiles. “Yeah.”

“That’s cool.”

As he says that his lips form a little smile, softening his features. He still looks like a big bear, but with squinty, crescent moon eyes and somewhat of a dimple.

Renjun wonders if Jeno is going to wait for Donghyuck with him out in the hallway. He peeks inside but he can’t see much other than another small hallway with shoes and coats hung.

“Well, I hope you make a good tiramisu,” Jeno starts, and it seems like he’s ending the conversation and closing the door. “I bet Donghyuck didn’t read the book for your meeting. ‘Cus he doesn’t seem like the type to read.”

When the door is almost closed. Jeno retreats inside of the apartment.

“He read the one for last week,” Renjun tries to defend him, moving so he can be seen through the crack of the door, but there’s not much else he could tell him about Donghyuck’s reading habits, because he’s only been in their book club since the previous week. Mark must know more.

Jeno’s face says that he didn’t hear what he said, but he doesn’t ask him to repeat himself. He pretends he understood with a polite nod, and it’s so obvious, it makes Renjun’s eyebrows furrow.

“Enjoy your hallway, then,” he says and closes the door.

The neon turns off automatically after a few seconds. Renjun’s alone in the hallway. It smells like mold, but it doesn’t really bother him. His own apartment building is old and has all sort of funny smells to it. He thinks it gives it character.

Renjun wraps the scarf back around his chin and tries to shrink inside his clothes from the cold. He doesn’t bother making a move to turn on the light. He waits in darkness.

Something about this person bothers him. Not in a bad way, but something just keeps on nagging him even after he’s left. He seemed so all over the place.

Although listening intently, there’s no sound coming from behind Jeno’s door. Just some TV loudly playing - maybe on a different floor - and some talking somewhere else.

He closes his eyes, rests his back against the wall and listens to all of that. He checks for sounds in the apartment to his left, but there’s none. The pajama boy must not be very loud.

There’s the sound of steps coming up and he opens his eyes.

“Hey!” Donghyuck greets, waving a hand in which he has a plastic grocery bag. There must be the lady fingers.

“Hello!”

He unglues his back from the wall and makes his way towards the stairs.

“Why are you in the hallway? Did Jeno not let you in?”

They climb down six flights of stairs, walk through the parking lot, run down the subway station stairs and get in the first subway. Halfway through, they get off and get on another subway on a different platform, then climb up the stairs, walk through the alleyway with the leafless trees, and climb another three flights of stairs.

They arrive with red noses and frozen fingertips.

Mark has been waiting for them.

Later in the evening when they’re tired from talking and laughing, Donghyuck goes home with a casserole of tiramisu for his roommate Jeno.


	2. cold season - this is only the beginning

“I bet that if you pull some of your Tarot cards right now,” Donghyuck mutters to Mark, “they’d tell you you’re being a big pain in the ass.”

Mark makes a grumbling sound deep in his throat. “Well, guess what, I _don’t_ have them on me now. And that’s not even how they work.”

Renjun watches them, amused, and munches down on another slice of brownie from the brownie plate, which he’s brought and baked. The book meeting this week is going wonderful, if you ask him. He nods to himself.

“And why am I the pain in the ass?” Mark continues. “I’m not the annoying one here.”

Mark looks for back up in Renjun’s direction, but the latter just raises his hands in the air and shakes his head. Their arguments are too stupid to take anyone’s side.

Renjun tilts his head, but in his mind, he sort of agrees with him. Donghyuck’s really getting fired up when sharing his opinion, and it’s been like that every meeting they’ve had. It doesn’t really bother Renjun, he thinks it’s part of his character; but it surely bothers Mark.

Just before Donghyuck gets to spit back a reply, Renjun pops in with a finger raised, as _a time out, please_ , and turns to him.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he whispers, “but can I get a glass of water?”

Donghyuck’s facial figures go from scrunched and pouty to soft and surprised.

“Yeah, sure!” he scrapes his chair across the kitchen tiles and stands up, going to pick up a glass from a cupboard and fill it with water. As he does, Mark’s rubbing a hand on his forehead. “I’ve been told it’s super hot in this apartment, but I’m used to it already. Tell me if you want me to turn the heater down a bit.”

He’s been told the truth, Renjun thinks, as another small bead of sweat runs down on the side of his body. He feels the uncomfortable trail it leaves, and undoes another button on his knitted sweater. He looks at Mark, who’s already stripped all his layers until his t-shirt, then at Donghyuck, who’s greeted them into his apartment in a thin shirt and summer pants.

Their walk and subway ride from their shared apartment to Donghyuck’s was all types of windy, cold and grey clouds threatening to rain on them. But now he’s sweating.

“While you’re there, can I have one as well?” Mark mumbles.

Donghyuck clicks his tongue and sends him a glare over his shoulder but fills a glass for him and puts them on the table. Renjun thanks him, while Mark just mumbles something again before gulping it all down.

There’s a few moments of silence, in which Renjun listens intently for any new sounds while his eyes roam around on Donghyuck’s kitchen walls, white and simple and tidy, with all the utensils in the right place, nothing more than a toaster and a kettle out. One pencil on the counter behind him. His gaze drifts off towards the window, where the sun is setting.

Renjun sighs. It’s afternoon, but soon they’ll have to turn on an artificial light.

“Chapter seven was _abysmal_ ,” Donghyuck starts again. “Absolutely horrifying. This was the worst plot twist in history. How could you – how can you say you enjoyed it?”

“I mean, it was sort of realistic,” Renjun says, flipping some pages in his own copy of the book.

“Exactly!” Mark exclaims. “Donghyuck, I think you’re just looking for happy endings where you can’t really find them.”

Donghyuck scoffs loudly and rolls his eyes. “What do _you_ know?” he clicks his tongue again.

“Don’t fight,” Renjun’s holding in his laugh. He pushes the brownie plate in his direction across the table, encouraging him to eat. “Eat a brownie.”

“We’re not fighting,” he says, but takes a brownie either way. He makes a sound of pleasure in his throat as he chews, and he gets crumbs all around his lips. Mark sighs and throws him a napkin.

The plate gets pushed in the other direction now, to Mark, and Renjun watches them both eat with his chest swelling up with pride.

“I think the fact that you’re always trying to be mister realistic takes away the joy of life,” Donghyuck tells Mark with a serious face, stretching over the table to take another brownie. Renjun watches him eat that too, and he smiles. “These are so good,” he says with his mouth full.

Renjun laughs as a thank you.

Another napkin flies through the air, “Oh my God, would you wipe those crumbs off your face! Who says I’m being mister realistic? I think you’re being mister head-in-the-clouds, then!”

“There was actually no way they would’ve ended up together,” Renjun tells Donghyuck, like he’s trying to convince a child not to eat sweets before bedtime. “It just wouldn’t have fit the story.”

Donghyuck throws his arms in the air, then rests his hands on his head. “Jesus!”

Mark turns to Renjun, with a finger pointed, “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying.”

Donghyuck wipes the napkin around his mouth, then presses his lips in a tight line and squints his eyes, “Whose side are you on?”

Renjun’s eyebrows shoot up and he laughs in disbelief, not knowing what to say.

“Uhm, no one’s, I think? Actually,” he gets up from his chair, “I need to go to the bathroom. Where is it?”

Donghyuck tilts his head towards a closed door. “Down the hall.”

As he shuffles the house slippers Donghyuck has given him across the tiles, he hears Mark’s exasperated _“Why can’t you accept the fact that I have a different opinion from you?”_ and Donghyuck’s _“Because your opinion is wrong!”_. Then, he closes the door and steps into the dimly lit hallway.

Donghyuck’s roommate isn’t there. He holds his breath and listens for any sounds in the rest of the apartment - he’s been doing that since he got there around lunch time, whenever the both of them would stay quiet for one moment, and he’d listen for distant talking, or doors opening and closing, music, something. But it’s always just a mixture of buzzing noises from different appliances. The fridge, the TV, a neighbour watching the news too loudly.

There are two doors on each side of the hallway, and he doesn’t understand why, but he’s somehow looking for him. For Donghyuck’s roommate.

He presses one ear to the door on his left. Nothing.

He unglues his ear and does the same to the door on his right. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary here either. The fear of getting caught doing something so silly makes him go past the two doors and walk into the bathroom.

Inside the room, the air is even more suffocating, wet and warm. And in the midst of it all, stands Jeno.

“Ah!” Renjun exclaims; the syllable gets stuck in his throat so it ends more abruptly, higher pitched. He freezes with the door knob in his hand.

He grows still for exactly three seconds.

Between the waves of steam, just a little bit of sunshine comes through the small window, making water droplets visible. Jeno stops what he’s doing - towel drying his hair - and turns his head to the door. He looks just as surprised – as if he didn’t know there even was anyone else in the house.

His hair is messy, falling on his forehead in strands and strands.

In the glowing haze of the small room, Renjun sees a glimpse of pants and of skin, a glimpse of naked arm and torso from under the towel the boy has over his shoulders. He smells the shampoo scent, the body wash, all minty.

Jeno’s hair is wet and he doesn’t have time to react at all because Renjun is already on his way to exit the bathroom.

“Sorry, I should’ve knocked!”

He closes back the door quickly.

Renjun sighs out all that damp, soapy air he’s inhaled into his lungs. He feels so silly, it makes him laugh alone in the hallway, cheeks burning hot. He touches them and it feels like it’s spreading through his whole body. Another drop of sweat runs down his body, and he shimmies out of his sweater completely.

He walks back to the kitchen and sits on his chair, taking one last gulp of his water, just to wet his throat, even if he still needs to use the bathroom. He folds his sweater on the back of his chair.

Mark and Donghyuck are still bickering.

And Mark doesn’t roll his eyes often, but he does sigh a lot, and it’s like there’s an extra supply of air in his lungs for him this afternoon that allows him to sigh this much.

“You’re absolutely making me lose my mind!” he exclaims through his teeth, ignoring Renjun’s presence, obviously trying to hold it all in. Mark always tries to hold it all in.

Donghyuck stops. His lips twitch a little, he manages to keep a straight face, though there’s a look of satisfaction on his face.

“Am I, really?”

Mark looks away. Once again, he sighs.

The hallway door is being opened. Everybody turns to see Jeno walking in, now with a white shirt on, hair slightly dryer, still on his forehead.

His presence comes with a soft punch of embarrassment that Renjun feels in his belly, and he feels silly again.

“You’ll catch a cold if you don’t wear house slippers,” Donghyuck tells him before Jeno can even open his mouth. He smiles in his direction but it’s not necessarily a happy smile, it’s just a substitute of a proper, verbal reply.

Renjun peeks down, and he’s barefoot again, wet feet leaving water prints all over the tiles.

“Hello,” he greets instead, ignoring Donghyuck.

His checkered pyjama pants hang loosely around his waist, and when he raises his arms a bit, his white shirt riles up and shows a little bit of an underwear band. He manages to look big, all over. He’s tall, the tallest one in the room.

Mark greets him back. Renjun nods and smiles politely, trying to keep his eyes averted, which he doesn’t manage because Jeno catches his eye and gives him a silent smile, a little _it’s okay that you saw me half naked after the shower_ look, and it makes Renjun smile back, just as little. Less a smile and more a twitch of lips. He starts munching on his bottom one, and decides he will not raise his eyes from the table anymore.

“Did you eat lunch?” Donghyuck asks him.

“Yes,” he says.

“Did you eat dinner?”

He’s talking a lot louder now, Renjun notices, but it’s hard for him to put two and two together.

“It’s not really time for dinner, right?”

All four of them look at the clock on the wall.

“No, not yet, I suppose.”

“Hm.”

“Does it bother you if I stay to work?” Jeno asks. “The light is better here.”

Renjun twists in his chair to look at him; he’s got a pencil pouch in his hands and he’s rummaging through it. When he’s got his eyebrows furrowed like that, concentrating, he looks a bit intimidating. Big and intimidating. It makes Renjun look away again.

Renjun waits for someone else to reply. Mark shrugs his shoulders.

“No, it’s fine,” Donghyuck says.

Jeno doesn’t join them at the table, like Renjun thought he would. He takes a seat on a bar stool at the counter.

He doesn’t turn his head around to look, but hears pencil scratching paper behind him. Shuffling of pencils inside the pouch. Spilling of said pencils against the hard surface of the counter, which spark an interest in him.

“Can we all agree that at least chapter nine was not as big of a disappointment as the rest of them?” Donghyuck says.

“Yes,” Renjun agrees, but he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. He flips through his book again, but only to leaf through it and close it back.

He opens his mouth to say something more, but he hears a whisper behind him; he feels it on the back of his neck.

“Thank you for the tiramisu,” the whisper, Jeno, says. “I thought it was wonderful.”

Renjun keeps the book in one hand and twists in his chair, gripping with the other hand the back rest.

Jeno is stretching a little over the counter to be closer to Renjun’s ear. He's smiling properly and he’s absolutely not intimidating when he does that, his smile stretches his whole face and a hint of dimples show. Renjun smiles back, genuine, because he feels like a jar full of honey when what he bakes receives a compliment.

Renjun twists back just to pick up the brownie plate and place it on Jeno’s counter. He nods towards it, encouraging him to eat.

“Did you make these?” Jeno whispers as he takes one, putting aside the pencil he was holding. Renjun nods. When he bites into it and chews, he hums, a low sound of satisfaction. Renjun feels his insides like honey again. There’s nothing that beats the sunlight forming in his chest that he gets when watching the face of someone eating his desserts. And unlike Donghyuck, he keeps his lips clean of crumbs, poking his tongue out to lick them every once in a while, so watching him is much more pleasant.

He’s pleasant to look at, overall, Renjun thinks, with a mouthful of sweets and a hand ruffling his hair. Because it’s still slightly wet, it stays back in its place when pushed off his forehead.

“Can I take another one?” Jeno asks.

“Renjun,” Mark says and snaps him out of it, “you told me something about the dialogue in the next chapter, right?” Donghyuck and Mark are looking at them, so Renjun twists back in his seat to answer after whispering a _“_ _T_ _hey’re all yours”_ to Jeno.

He noticed a big paper on Jeno’s counter, and all the pencils scattered around, but it’s too late to turn around again to get a good look at it. He might’ve been drawing. As they talk, Renjun hears the sound of pencils being sharpened behind him every once in a while.

When Donghyuck announces that he’s going to the bathroom, Mark gets the chance to sigh and slump down further in his chair.

“God, he’s so irritating. But only at the book club, I really don’t get it,” he moans, rubbing his eyes. “It’s energy draining.”

Renjun gives him a little side smile and leans a little, as if he’s about to tell him a secret. “Do you want to know what I think?”

Mark nods silently.

“I think that…” he unconsciously peeks over his shoulder to see if Jeno’s listening, which he’s not, “He’s being irritating on purpose. To push your buttons.”

Mark pulls a face.

“To play with you,” he concludes, and it’s one of the rare moments where Renjun witnesses Mark roll his eyes in embarrassment.

Instead of replying, he gets up from his chair, slowly, and walks over to the entry hallway, where he left his coat. He fumbles for something and retreats a cigarette pack from one pocket, shuffling his own slippers that Donghyuck has given him on the shiny tiles.

“Jeno,” he says, “is it okay if I smoke out the window?”

Jeno lifts his head from the paper at the sound of his name, but keeps his eyebrows furrowed at the rest of the sentence.

“What’d you say?”

Mark repeats himself, this time a little louder and less mumbled. Jeno’s features soften and he nods. “Sure.”

This is suspicious, Renjun concludes. It’s either that him and Mark speak very quietly, or Jeno has some stuff going on with his ears. Maybe he listens to music with the volume too high in his headphones.

The window is being opened and Mark stands in front of it. A gush of wind hits the kitchen. It's so cold, it makes Renjun squirm, but the breath of fresher, less suffocating air still feels good on his lungs. His sweat turns cold.

Mark places his pack on the window sill, takes one cigarette out and with the lighter from his jean pocket, lights the tip up. Exhales the smoke out.

Whether it’s cigarettes, candles or incense, Mark always faintly smells of smoke, no matter how much he tries to ventilate the room he’s in or wash his clothes. That’s just his thing. Things burn around him and the smoke catches on to him and won’t let go.

“I pulled some cards for myself today,” Mark says, but it looks more like he’s talking to himself or someone out the window than the two people in the room with him, “and they told me that something good will come to me, but only after I let go of something bad.” He pauses. “Maybe I should quit smoking, then.”

He would never in a million years do that. Renjun puffs, but in all honesty, he’d love it if Mark did.

The smoke is mostly washed away by the cold air. It’s obvious Mark’s resisting the need to wrap his arms around himself, they’re full of goosebumps.

“Close the window,” Jeno tells him, because the temperature in the room is getting too low, “smoke inside, it’s too cold out. We'll turn on the stove hood so it won’t smoke up the room.”

Renjun peeks to look at the paper on the counter, the one Jeno’s drawing on. He can’t see much, his arms cover most of it from this angle, but he sees splashes of colour. The interest that’s been sparked inside Renjun’s belly grows into a little fire.

Jeno catches him staring, and Renjun’s head whips back to looking ahead.

Mark does just as he’s told, closing the window and sitting down back in his chair. “Donghyuck’s going to be pissed,” he says, and in return Jeno just smiles a polite smile – not really the genuine kind, but the amused one - and nods. Renjun almost laughs.

Jeno slides a little plate to Mark as an ashtray, and from somewhere – Renjun didn’t see where – he gets his own pack of cigarettes, opening it with swift, mechanical movements. He then takes a little plate for himself and puts it on the paper, like the paper suddenly merged into the marble counter and is not there anymore.

He lights the tip with a plastic lighter, and there it is. He’s intimidating again, no, he’s _big_ , he takes up space and he doesn’t seem to find that uncomfortable. Though he has a lean figure, he looks strong, he must be strong, and when he smokes his eyebrows go furrow again and his eyes squint. The corners of his mouth go inward, he looks angry. And with his hair pushed back like that…

He catches Renjun’s stare, once again, and before Renjun has time to look away, Jeno keeps his gaze and just smiles at him, soft, eyebrows slightly raised, warm. He stretches a hand with the pack in a silent question or offer, and Renjun takes one, just for the hell of it, just because they’re both already puffing out smoke around him.

Renjun puts it between his lips and stretches for his plastic lighter, but Jeno takes it before he can grab it. Instead of handing it to him, he gestures for him to come closer, and when he does, Jeno presses on the lighter right under the tip of his cigarette and lights it up for him.

Renjun’s blood feels like honey again, slow and thick and glowing, making its presence noticed inside. He thanks him and quietly puffs out smoke.

The taste is like dirt, just like he’d remembered. Heavy, everywhere, but somewhat relaxing. It makes everything slow down, everything except for his heartbeat.

Jeno has turned on the hood over the stove, adding another buzzing noise to the rest of them. It’s pretty loud and it makes a poor job at absorbing the smoke, so it lingers in the room.

“Do you have these book talks every week?” Jeno asks them, and because Mark is blowing out smoke in a long, long breath, Renjun takes it upon himself to answer.

“Yeah. It was just me and Mark before, but we still did them every week.”

Jeno nods. “Huh. That’s pretty cool.”

It’s much better having Donghyuck in the book club, and that’s something Renjun has decided after the first meeting he’s joined. It’s one thing to sit in your own kitchen with your roommate to talk and go to bed before midnight; it’s another to have a fresh face, even a fresh apartment most of the time. He has a proper reason to ride the subway more often, now.

“I’m actually surprised Donghyuck is reading the books on a weekly basis,” he laughs a bit, tapping the cigarette over the ash plate.

Mark puffs smoke and a laugh, as well. “He’s been good so far.”

Jeno stretches his arms out in the air from his hunched position over the paper, which extracts a groan from him. His back cracks a little – he groans again, but a little in pain, Renjun sees his face scrunching up– but when he notices uninvited eyes roaming on his drawing again, he quickly moves back to pressing his forearms on the paper again and tap the ashes off.

That’s it, Renjun thinks, he’s trying to hide it.

He moves his eyes away with a little apologetic smile, and even if they haven’t used words, Renjun sort of feels like he’s understood. Like there’s a connection forming between them. Mark always tells him about energetic connections, and this must be it, really. Though he knows close to nothing about him, something feels different, as if he resonates with him on things they haven’t spoken about yet. Mark told him once about past life connections, but he doesn’t know what to think about them.

Or he might just be getting dizzy from the smoke. He hasn’t touched a cigarette in a while - he only does it on late nights, in his kitchen, when Mark smokes and the light is dim.

“You’re surprised that I _read_?” Donghyuck says, coming from the hallway and stepping inside. He puffs dramatically, but when the smell of smoke hits him he scrunches up his face in disgust.

He tries taking a step into the kitchen but suddenly stops, looking like he’s changed his mind; the grimace is a constant.

“I can’t tell you not to smoke,” he says with pain written on his face, “but this really bothers me.”

His face muscles distortion is enough for Renjun to instinctually pull out the cigarette from his mouth with a pop and hover it dangerously close above the ashtray. He knows smoke can give a headache in an instant, especially to a non-smoker. Mark only eyes Donghyuck from a side, like he’s considering – Jeno doesn’t even flinch.

“We can put them out,” Renjun says, like he’s persuading him. “I mean, it’s your kitchen, after all.”

Renjun does, he stumps the bud on the little plate and leaves it there. He gives Mark a look to follow suit, but Mark’s still deciding.

“No, there’s no need,” Donghyuck says, looking conflicted himself. He stays there, a step away from the door frame. “No, I’m just going to get some fresh air on the balcony for a bit.” He points a finger to Jeno, “And I want this kitchen clean and fresh, the ashes somewhere I can’t see or smell. Understood?”

Jeno closes his eyes slowly and nods even slower. It seems to Renjun that they’ve had this conversation before.

Donghyuck gives him another look before turning around. “You know, that’s coming along well, it looks better than last night,” he tells him, vaguely gesturing towards the drawing, then takes a step into the hallway.

And the smile on Jeno’s face is like caramel, or like a big bear who’s just eaten honey – no, it’s like Winnie the Pooh, because in less than a second his eyes turn into small lines and his lips turn into a doey smile. He mouths a thank you just in time for Donghyuck to catch before he leaves the kitchen. Renjun follows the back of his shirt.

No, he’s coming back.

“You know? I don’t really want to go alone,” he says, gripping the door frame. “Mark, do you want to keep me company?”

All of them stop for a brief moment. Even Donghyuck, who waits expectantly for an answer, and Mark, who looks like he’s just bitten the inside of his cheek.

Renjun knows – he always bites it when he’s nervous – and even his eyes have gotten a little wider. Renjun takes a look around the room; and it seems like everybody knows. Jeno’s puckering his lips just so that he doesn’t smile and Donghyuck’s golden skin has added a faint glow of a blush in some areas, matching with Marks’.

Even Renjun feels butterflies in his stomach, as if his and Marks’ have a channel way between them.

He, just like everybody else in the room, watches intently for Mark’s next move. He droops his eyes back and releases his cheek, finally, returning to his default blank expression.

He puts his barely started cigarette in the ashtray and then, without sparing them another word – or look – he leaves the kitchen with Donghyuck, closing the door behind him.

The buzzing Renjun’s feeling grows more intense. He’ll ask Mark about it later, when they’re in their own kitchen, late at night. But for now, he’ll try to pretend he’s oblivious.

Shortly after realising that he’s left alone with Jeno in the room, he starts feeling his shoulders tensing up. His confliction gets more upsetting when no conversation topics come to mind.

They’ve both have put out their cigarettes, but the smell still lingers, and soon enough, it will disappear, like fog in the morning.

No, Jeno reaches for his pack to pull another one, his last one, which he firstly offers to Renjun. When refused, he puts it between his own lips and throws the empty pack in the garbage can. Renjun just watches him silently, how he takes his time with this one, probably because it’s the last one, how he closes his eyes for half a second when inhaling. His mind goes blank and the more time passes, the harder it is to say something.

Jeno breathes out smoke and Renjun’s lungs are filled over the brim with that smell of wet dirt; it makes him cough.

His head turns at the sound, and when seeing the subtle discomfort on Renjun’s face, he hurries up to take a few more drags – in the lack of other things to do, Renjun focuses on the way his lips press tightly around it, then on his jaw going almost slack when breathing out – then stomps the bud next to the others. The smell and texture of the smoke get to him even after that, and he tries to swallow the coughs that make their way up, but to no avail. It feels like his tongue is getting too big for his mouth, and his nostrils sting.

He looks away and tries relaxing his throat.

“So, how do you make a tiramisu?” Jeno suddenly asks, and Renjun’s so surprised that he talked, he yelps mid-cough.

He swallows and clears his throat.

“Well, you need to-” his voice breaks a little, and he tries to clear his throat harder, but it’s raw and it’s starting to hurt, “you need to whip the eggs first.”

His voice is wavy and turns into a deep hum without notice. He tries coughing deep in his throat again. The sound is loud and weird and makes Renjun feel embarrassed.

Jeno stands up from his stool, picks up the glass that’s in front of Renjun and fills it back with water. Renjun’s too scared to open his mouth to thank him so he resumes on smiling, and Jeno smiles back. The water doesn’t wash away the taste of his cigarettes – it’s everywhere, from his tongue to his lips and nose – and it tastes like water mixed with dirt down his throat, but it feels like he’s regaining his voice again.

Jeno rests his arms from the elbow down ontop of his drawing paper and his pencils, as if there’s nothing there. Renjun sort of doubts that he’s interested in his tiramisu recipe, but he still talks.

“And then you add the mascarpone cheese and mix them together,” he says, “but you need to make sure you do it slowly, so the air bubbles don’t pop. It makes it creamy and light, that way.”

“What about the lady fingers?” Jeno asks, and Renjun was wrong, he does actually seem interested, because he’s pulling out a little notebook and scribbles down as he talks. So Renjun grabs the insides of his chair and twists until he’s facing him, only the counter between them. Jeno leans in to listen.

“You soak them in the coffee syrup, but not for too long, or they break.”

Jeno writes it down.

“You don’t want soggy ladyfingers?”

“No, not really.”

“Then how do you know when to take them out of the coffee?”

Renjun nods his head to the side, raising his shoulders a little.

“You just sort of know when it’s time,” he says, and his fingers find the rounded edge of the counter to rest upon.

Jeno hums in response.

Renjun spins his notebook around – which is also strategically placed over the drawing paper – and fills in between his messy writing the measurements for each ingredient.

“So, do you usually memorise recipes?” Jeno asks, twisting his head so he can read what he’s writing.

Up close, when Jeno’s gaze trails up from the notebook to Renjun’s eyes, there’s a lot more things to observe. For example, Jeno has this little mole under his right eye, and another on his cheek. His eyes, though kind, get so fixated on one thing it’s almost scary, how he looks at Renjun like he’s trying to memorise every one of his features.

Some strands of hair fall back on his forehead. Renjun continues writing, but he inhales his body wash smell, his fresh scent mixed with cigarettes. And Jeno’s still there, almost like he’s hovering above him, looking down.

“Sort of, yeah.”

Jeno makes another sound deep in his throat, resembling the buzzing of the stove hood.

“That’s pretty cool.”

The smell of smoke starts to dissolve.

“You’re really into baking stuff, huh?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“How come?”

He takes a second to reply, shaking his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you like it?”

“Oh.” He pauses briefly, debating if he should give his honest opinion, then continues, “It’s a really intimate thing. Because… you feed someone, you make something that goes into people’s stomachs,” he tries to explain, “And I make everything with a lot of love. Even if you might not notice it, allowing to be fed means you’re putting your guard down for a moment.”

He takes another sip of his water. “That’s just how I see it.”

Jeno hums, nodding along, like he’s thinking about it. “I’ve never heard that explanation in my life.” He adds a string of _hmmm_. “But what do you mean letting your guard down?”

“Well, see, hypothetically, I could’ve poisoned my brownies. You had no way of knowing if they’re good for you or not, but you trusted they might be.”

Jeno eyes the empty plate and laughs. But he looks deep in thought now.

“That’s my way of connecting with people,” he concludes.

Jeno nods and looks at the plate one more time.

Renjun tentatively points a finger at the paper that he’s using as an armrest. “Do you… go to art school?”

Jeno nods.

“That’s really pretty,” he points again. “You’re really talented.”

He can’t help but twist his head a little to look at the splashes of colour under Jeno’s forearms. It looks like a beginning of a landscape, there’s a lot of green, that could be grass, and some flowers, maybe, somewhere…

“What do _you_ do?” Jeno asks him, and pulls his arms over the most coloured part. Renjun snaps back and moves his eyes away.

It takes him a while to reply to this. “Uhm, well,” he drags it out as much as possible, “I’m currently on a gap year from college.”

With a hint of surprise, Jeno hums again. “How come?”

Renjun tries to find the right wording.

“Well, oh, I wasn’t…I don’t really know. I didn’t like what I was studying in college enough to keep going, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“No, I know for sure.”

Another understanding sound from Jeno.

“But I’ll get back to it after I know what I’m doing. I mean, I haven’t dropped out.”

Jeno gives him a look, but doesn’t push it.

“Then, what do you do with your time?”

“I…Hm, not that much, really. I find some stuff to spend my time with,” Renjun replies, in the hopes that they’ll move to another subject. He saves himself the embarrassment of listing his boring daily activities. He doesn’t do anything that cool, and it’s a subject he avoids discussing even with Mark.

Jeno opens his mouth, but his eyes go wide the minute they fall on the window.

“Woah,” he whispers under his breath, hopping off his stool, “It’s snowing!”

He opens the window, with all its darkness and stillness, and it’s true. It is snowing. Slowly, calmly, quietly.

There is no wind anymore. No cars rushing down the street. The sky turned a reddish colour, strange and comforting.

Renjun sees all of it from his chair.

Jeno rests his arms on the window sill, stands on the tip of his toes, and reaches forward, until Renjun can’t see his face anymore. He’s bent at the hip, and it seems like now he stretched his arms down, letting them hang low. Renjun’s scared he’s going to fall, but he doesn’t. Jeno’s barefoot on the tiles, and the fresh air feels both harsh and welcomed in the warm, smoky kitchen.

The snowflakes fall slowly, taking their time and so does Jeno, all the while the whole kitchen burrows the crisp, fresh air.

“Please don’t fall out the window,” Renjun murmurs. Whether it went unheard or not, Jeno still rises and comes back fully in the room, taking a step back from the window.

There are snowflakes on the top of his head. Jeno lets them melt on his hair. His face is an evident shade of crimson, from the top of his cheeks to his nose, which is now runny.

“I really want to see this from the balcony.” He takes Renjun’s folded sweater and gives it to him, “Come.”

Renjun puts it on and follows him, but just like Donghyuck did, Jeno stops in his tracks as he reaches the door, making Renjun hit his forehead on his shoulder blade and stumble back with a little “oh…”.

“Sorry,” Jeno spins on his heel with a short little laugh and makes way for the freezer, from where he gets out three big boxes of frozen pizza. He puts them on the counter and presses a button on the oven.

“Are you hungry?” he asks Renjun. He nods. “When the oven is preheated, it will make itself known. Now, come,” he says, and leads the way on the hallway, into one of the two doors Renjun has pressed his ear against. It’s too dark to see anything in it, but something tells him it’s Donghyuck’s bedroom.

He stops and Renjun almost bumps into him again.

“We haven’t had people over in a long time,” Jeno tells him in the darkness of the bedroom. His face can barely be seen, it’s blurred at the edges and a shade of grey. “I always spend my time away in my room, drawing.” He puffs a little laugh. “It sort of feels like I forgot there’s a world out there, with people in it.”

Renjun blinks the darkness away and looks at him. He nods for himself, a little dazed at the sudden somewhat serious topic. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

Something in his tummy sparks again, for a brief second. It must’ve worked, he thinks to himself, he managed to create that beginning of an intimacy between them because of his desserts. Because everybody sometimes wants to step aside and let someone else bring them something sweet.

They share one more moment in that room until Jeno opens another door, revealing the little balcony.

Mark and Donghyuck are sitting on opposite sides of the balcony, like they purposefully let the bike there to keep them apart.

The string with the laundry clipped on is full of socks and underwear. They have to bend their necks to walk under it, and they settle for standing a step behind Mark and Donghyuck, who were obviously in a middle of a conversation that they’ve set aside for now.

Renjun now sees that Mark’s wearing a hoodie, a random hoodie, which is not his. A grey training jacket, too tight in comparison to the oversized ones he usually wears. Without a doubt, it’s Donghyuck’s, and without a doubt, Mark visibly turns embarrassed when he’s seen. Maybe it’s from wearing the hoodie, Renjun thinks. Mark pretends he’s incredibly invested in the snow, but Renjun reads him better than that.

“I turned on the oven to bake some pizzas,” Jeno tells Donghyuck.

Donghyuck nods, pleased. He’s wearing one of those tight training jackets as well.

The scenery is more beautiful out here, though freezing cold.

The snowflakes fall even slower. First snow in a year.

They watch it in silence. The snow is visible because of the street lights under them, and it shines only a little on their faces as well, bringing colour to them. Other than that, everything’s just shades of blue and grey.

Renjun gets so cold, he squirms inside his sweater, wrapping his arms around himself.

The sky always is a warmer colour when it snows at night.

“I think I might quit smoking,” Mark says from his side of the railway. He’s got his elbows propped up on it.

All three of them hum in acknowledgement.

Renjun looks at Mark’s back, who looks out into the distance, thinking. His jet black hair is swayed away from his forehead once in a while by the wind. Then, he looks at Donghyuck, who doesn’t even have eyes for the snow – he’s only looking at Mark.

Then he turns his head towards Jeno’s profile.

Then at the snow. Then back at all of them.

Yeah, he thinks, he could go for this more often, he likes this. He’s cold all over, but he somehow feels warm, deep in his stomach.

Jeno senses the eyes on him and turns around. He shows him a tiny smile, one that’s just for him.

There’s a _ding!_ that comes from the oven in the kitchen.


	3. cold season - this is only the beginning

The rails shake the whole subway with a constant grumble of metal.

Renjun’s got his eyes focused on a book, which he holds in his hand with much interest, a finger between the pages pushing back the spine. He’s a little hunched over it, the seat being a bit cold and uncomfortable for his back, just like every other chair in a public means of transport. All alone, with only his linen bag, his book and a plastic grocery bag that hangs around his wrist, he puts his elbows on his spread knees and reads silently, as the speakers announce the regular stations.

He doesn’t pay attention to anyone around him. People come and go, talk on the phone or listen to music loudly in their headphones, but he only cares for the words he’s reading and the announcements on the speakers at a regular interval.

Mark’s waiting for him at home. He only has a couple of stations left.

After a while, he starts seeing something in the corner of his eye, something that he just can’t shake the feeling of. It’s so _there_ , it’s distracting from his reading, it’s a bundle of energy pulsating in the corner of his eye. After a few more moments, he looks up and into the direction of his little mystery. And it’s true, just like his instinct has told him, it is time to put back the bookmark, store his book in his bag and stand up.

He feels the warm, exciting feeling of seeing a familiar face between so many strangers.

Renjun wraps his scarf around his neck just so that it won’t fall off, but while he does so, he loses his balance and barely manages to catch a handle above him just in time.

He twists his neck a couple of times; it cracks, then he makes his way, step by step, handle by handle, to the other side of the subway. It shakes him from one side to the other constantly.

Jeno’s there.

On the other side, gripping a handle of his own, neck bent, looking down at his phone. He’s not dressed in his pyjama pants now – _obviously_ – but regular blue jeans and sneakers and a huge coat buttoned all the way up to his neck, which makes his head look small in comparison. Not only that, but covering most of his forehead and ears is a knitted hat with a little tassel at the top that makes him look a tad bit silly.

As Renjun gets closer, he sees that he has his headphones in, and while bopping his head to the rhythm of the music, so does the tassel. Only a few strands of his brown hair lay flat against his forehead, having managed to escape the hat.

Renjun eyes him from head to toe and decides that this boy is really something.

“Hey,” he says over his shoulder, trying to appear in his field of vision without stepping in too close, but it goes unnoticed. Jeno doesn’t even flinch, just bops his head, typing something on his phone. He has a brown leather bag across his shoulder and something else, in the shape of a black tube, which must be for storing drawings, lying flat on his back with a strap.

“Hey, Jeno -” he stops to let out a small dissatisfied noise. The boy is too immersed in his phone to acknowledge his presence.

Just as he tries to catch his attention again, Jeno senses someone staring over his shoulder and quickly turns around in surprise. While spinning so suddenly, he knocks heads with Renjun; both of them yelp loudly.

“Ah, shit!”

Jeno loses his balance, his hand slipping off the handle from the contact. Renjun’s quick to catch him by the sleeve of his coat, pulling him closer.

“Oh, my,” Jeno breathes out. “Oh my God, my heart flew out of my chest.”

He exhales out long, from his mouth. Renjun smells his minty gum.

“I’m so sorry!”

He lets go of his coat.

“I saw you here and just wanted to say hello,” he explains, but his words come out stuttered as he’s also out of breath. The spot on his forehead, where Jeno slammed pointy his chin in, stings. He keeps a hand there, rubbing.

Jeno squints at him, then leans in more than he’s ever done before. “What’d you say?”

Oh, he’s pretty close, and Renjun has access to repeat himself right into his ear, like he’s telling him a secret. Jeno has bent his neck down to reach him.

“Oh!” Jeno straightens his back again. “Hello, then.”

“Hey.”

Jeno’s looking down at him; they stand there together in a little lack of words, the subway keeping its way forward, making its metal sound. They each grip one handle above their heads, but Jeno’s making an obviously smaller effort to reach it – it’s right there for him. Renjun has to really stretch his hand up to grasp it.

“Where are you headed?” he’s asked.

No, they’re really close, Renjun decides. He could take a step back, but somehow he doesn’t. He’s observant of the little strands of hair that come out of his knitted, weird hat with different coloured stripes and wool texture. Jeno sniffles his runny nose a few times.

“Home. You?”

“Home, as well. I finished classes and I’m going to have dinner with Donghyuck in,” he pushes his phone’s button to check the time, “in about an hour.”

He puts his phone away in his coat pocket, so his empty hand swings around for a bit, searching for purpose, until it rests upon the strap of his brown bag.

Renjun nods under his scarf. He peeks at the black tube over Jeno’s shoulder, “Did you draw today?”

Jeno nods a few times. That’s a stupid question, Renjun thinks, he goes to _art_ _school_. Of course he drew.

Another pause. He starts feeling his shoulders tensing up as he roams his eyes on the subway grey walls, searching for something to say.

In the end, Renjun clears his throat. “I like your hat.” He stretches his neck to get a good look at it.

Jeno smiles and his smile lines around his mouth and eyes show. “Thank you. I knitted it myself.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

The voice over the speakers announce a new station coming up soon. There’s an idea forming in him, but he has to make up his mind quickly. This is his station.

“Hey,” Renjun starts, “do you want to get off here with me? I’m baking a cake at home and it’s almost ready and maybe you want to taste it. You can catch another subway afterwards to go home, it won’t take long.”

Jeno looks down at him, and in this proximity, there’s nowhere to look at other than _directly into eyes_ or _away_. He looks away for a bit, then directly into eyes. They’re getting closer to the station.

He squints his eyes.

“How is it almost ready if you’re in the subway right now?”

“Oh, well, it’s in the oven now. I left Mark to watch over it and I went out to buy sprinkles for decoration.”

“Sprinkles?”

Renjun raises the plastic bag in the air.

That makes Jeno let out a small laugh, like a sequence of short breaths with a smile on his face.

“Hm…I kind of was craving something sweet,” he says, and just in time, because the subway comes to a stop and the doors are opened. Renjun takes him by the coat sleeve again just to pull him out on the platform, then releases his grip.

The subway announces the closing of the doors and takes off with speed. In a few seconds it’s gone.

The lighting in the station is warm, a yellow-ish green. Subways come and go, people wait for them on the benches.

“This way,” Renjun leads the way, walking up the stairs to ground level with Jeno by his side. They leave behind the smell of dust and enter the street, where the air is significantly more breathable, but they’re already hit with the harsh wind on their sensitive skin.

It makes Renjun squint his eyes and hide his hands deep in his pockets. The plastic bag hangs around his wrist.

He looks up at the sky – it’s colourless, grey in some places, making the contrast between light and shadow almost non-existent.

“Mmhmm,” Jeno hums. “It will rain soon, I bet.”

Renjun silently agrees with him.

As they walk on the alleyway that connects the subway to Renjun’s building, the leafless trees swing their branches, like they’re greeting them. The path is paved and long, empty, so that it almost feels infinite.

It’s so cold, Renjun feels a slight tremor throughout his whole body, like a buzzing motion but less pleasurable. He starts to not feel his feet anymore.

“What sort of cake is this?” Jeno asks, his question visible in the shape of white vapor.

Without stopping, Renjun turns his head to him, “I don’t know what it’s called, really. I mixed some recipes and played around for a while.”

His teeth start cluttering as he speaks.

“It started from a regular sponge cake, but it has rose water and raspberries and vanilla cream.”

Jeno puckers his lips, seemingly impressed. He pulls his striped knitted hat further down on his forehead, hiding even more strands of hair; he’s trying to cover his red ears better. Then, he says, “You know, I’ve been thinking about that thing you said.”

As they continue walking, Renjun furrows his brows, unclenching his jaw.

“When?”

“When we first met…”

“In your hallway?”

Jeno click his tongue. “Then, I don’t know when it was, maybe it was the second time, but we were in my kitchen and you told me that it’s really special to feed someone. That you put your guard down when you eat.”

“I remember, yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then.” His teeth start cluttering, too. Renjun enjoys watching his side profile as they walk.

“Why?”

“’Cus you said it with some really nice words. I guess I never paid that much attention to connecting with people. I’ve never drawn having someone else in mind, for example. The fact that I draw is really more selfish than…a lot of other things.”

Renjun hums, nodding along. It’s the first time he hears something like that.

“I don’t think you need to. To think about others while you draw, I mean. You have your own reasons for why you’re passionate about it. I’m sure.”

It’s Jeno’s turn to hum. “I do.”

They reach the end of the alleyway and the beginning of the long, perpendicular street filled with small old apartment buildings. Jeno looks them up and down, then asks Renjun, “Will you give me the recipe?” and without tearing his eyes off the ivy stems crawling up the brick building, “This place is straight out of a fairy tale.”

Renjun looks back for a second at the long, long path they’ve walked on – the trees still shake – then, without giving much of a response other than a puffed laugh, he runs past Jeno on the entry stairs, fishing out his key card and unlocking the front door.

Inside, it’s much warmer, but it’s too sudden of a temperature change. Renjun undoes some of his coat buttons and Jeno takes off his hat and keeps it in his hand. His brown hair sticks up in places, so he smooths it out.

Renjun leads the way once again to the third and last floor of the building.

“I don’t think I’ve ever baked a cake in my life,” Jeno confesses on the stairs.

Renjun twists the key in the lock and turns his head to look behind him.

“You haven’t?”

He wonders what he needs his recipes for, then.

He unlocks the door and steps is and Jeno follows. The smell of something baking in the over is the first thing that hits them, subtle and warm, nice.

It takes them a while to get themselves out of their thick coats, hats and boots, but when they’re done, Renjun takes their coats and puts them up in the dresser. Jeno’s just in a hoodie now, on which Renjun sees a few stains of black. Ink? There’s no way he can know and he doesn’t ask.

Jeno takes his bag and tube into the kitchen.

Sitting on the floor, legs spread out long, is Mark. His back rests against the foot of the table and his socked feet reach the oven. He’s got one eye on the cake, one in his textbook.

The smell of a sponge cake is even sweeter and warmer in here.

“Hello, I’m back,” Renjun greets to catch his attention.

“Oh, hey.” He then sees Jeno stepping into the kitchen as well. “Oh. Hi. What’s up?”

“Hey. Well, I ran into him,” he points at Renjun, “and I was invited to eat some cake.”

“Oh.” Mark stretches his neck out long to peek into the hallway. “Did you bring Donghyuck with you?”

Renjun puffs, quietly, preoccupying himself with checking the cake to hide it.

“Ah, no, I think he’s at yoga now,” Jeno tells him, and to that Mark has nothing more to say.

“Thank you for watching it,” Renjun pops, and Mark stands up from the floor to sit back on the sofa, where he’s got all his other notebooks spread out. “Jeno, take a seat. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

Renjun squats down and checks to see if the sponge is made with a toothpick, tastes the icing again with a teaspoon and turns off the heat for the oven to take the cake out, all the while he’s got a pair of eyes glued to the back of his neck. He feels it, even if he tries to shake it away. There’s no way in hell he’s turning around to check.

He just feels like he’s being watched.

“So, the recipe?” Jeno asks.

Renjun peeks over his shoulder while swirling a spoon in the cream bowl. He’s got the same little notepad in his lap and a pencil in his hand. Next to him, Mark is studying.

Renjun turns back.

“Yeah, sure.”

As he starts assembling everything together, cream between layers, evenly spread out, raspberries on top, icing all over, he also talks, blindly taking Jeno step by step through his process. He hears Mark’s fountain pen and Jeno’s pencil on paper.

Halfway through, Renjun takes the bowl with the cream, turning around to face the table and hands them each a teaspoon, “Here, taste this.”

“Wow,” Jeno says, his bottom lip drawn in.

Mark nods. “This is good.” He goes back to reading. Just before Renjun takes the bowl away from the table, he scoops another teaspoon of cream and eats it silently.

Renjun smiles proudly.

When Renjun puts the cake plate – all pink and sprinkled up and pretty – on the tablecloth, the two of them look up from their individual pages. Jeno lets out a tiny gasp and closes his notebook on his lap.

“Oh, my. Oh, wow, this looks magical.”

The choice of words makes Renjun laugh, but inside his chest something fuzzes.

“Yeah, this is really something,” Mark says, and goes to scoop a tiny amount of pink icing with his finger – Renjun lets him. He takes out little porcelain plates, the good ones, and spreads the three of them on the dining table so he can put a slice on each. He slides the biggest one to Jeno, then the middle one to Mark, and the smallest is left for him. Renjun finally sits down in front of them and only stops smiling when chewing the first bite.

Then he closes his own eyes for a moment- _oh, Renjun, you genius_ , he thinks to himself. It’s so good, he has to refrain himself from moaning. The sponge is the right amount of moist and the cream is light, just like he feared he wouldn’t be able to make it. And it looks so pretty, it actually makes his eyes wet.

“This is amazing,” that’s Jeno speaking, but Renjun just can’t take his eyes off his cake, he admires it with all the love he has, petite and round and all pink, “no, this is _incredible._ And I thought the _tiramisu_ was good…I really thought you just did this as a hobby,” he says, and Renjun furrows his brows in confusion, “but you’re actually a pro! Hah!” He puffs another laugh and puts the spoon in his mouth.

Renjun pauses for the slightest moment, this blood turning into honey, making him glow from inside out. There’s something tickling in his chest and stomach now and it only makes him look away, trying to bite down a sheepish smile. He’s always been ticklish.

“Thank you,” he can only say. It makes him feel so silly, so his teeth bite deeper into his lip, and when he thinks that’s not enough, he puts his palm in front of his mouth again, as if he’s chewing. When he checks to see the two of them, they’re not even looking up at him. Jeno’s already done with his slice, and is now scraping little crumbs and remaining cream off his plate.

“Renjun, you’ve done it again,” Mark says. He wipes his mouth clean with a napkin.

“I loved this,” Jeno licks the teaspoon. “I really did.” He licks it one more time, but it’s already clean. “I never knew what rose water tastes like, but I feel like I just ate a lot of pink roses. In a good way.”

He gives him a smile, a full one where he stretches his neck towards him and his eyes turn small. His hand rubs his belly, emphasising his delight, and Renjun can only stand up from his chair and go to the sink to start washing some dishes, just so he doesn’t have to respond.

Or show his face. He hums like he’s thanking him, and turns on the tap, the syrup bowl going in first. He scrubs at it with a sponge and pours some dishwash in it. The sound of water hitting and filling the bowl is annoyingly loud, but covers up the buzzing Renjun feels in his chest. It’s like he has a bee hive in there, sending off honey instead of blood in his body, through his veins.

“I feel like I have a rose garden in my belly,” Jeno confesses to Mark, to which Marks hums in approval and Renjun munches down on his bottom lip. There’s honey everywhere in him now.

“Let me give you some to take home,” Renjun tells him in return, putting the bowls to the side and squatting down again to look for a plastic casserole in one of their drawers. He pulls one out and leaves it on the dining table while he cuts a big slice out of the cake. It doesn’t really fit, but he presses down on the lid until it closes. “It’s a little smashed, but tastes the same.”

Jeno beams at him, “That’s alright. Thank you.”

“Should I give you a bag as well?”

“No, I have my school one, but thank you, again,” Jeno stands up and picks up his pencil, notebook, and bag, “I’m glad I ran into you, I was having a hard day at school. We always meet at random times, don’t we? Hah.”

He laughs a bit, quietly, to which Mark says, nose still in his studies, “Maybe the Universe keeps bringing you together.”

Jeno tilts his head, like he’s considering. “Might just be.” Then, to Renjun, “I’ll get going now. I don’t want to be late for dinner, Donghyuck will get pissy.”

Renjun nods vigorously a few times and makes way for him to exit the kitchen.

“What are you two having?” Mark asks.

From the hallway, Jeno pops only his head back in the kitchen to respond. “Pizza. Well, frozen pizza.”

Then he retreats and leaves his things on the ground while he puts his shoes on and ties the laces, Renjun leaning into the wall to watch. He’s holding the cake casserole.

Jeno is meticulously slow in putting on his coat, doing up the zipper. He pushes all his hair back to shove the hat down on his head, but strands still fall back on his forehead. He looks like a smiley bear like that, and when he’s done sweeping the bag and tube over his shoulder, Renjun stops him from moving closer to the exit door.

“Wait, did I tell you how to make the cream? I don’t think I did.”

“Oh…”

He half hands him the notebook, and Renjun half takes it from him, opened at the page, along with the pencil.

Renjun looks at it – the page on the left has scribbles which resemble his recipe, and the one on the right, a little drawing.

It’s a drawing of his kitchen – Renjun should’ve known – with the cake and stripes on the tablecloth and the radio on the counter and the dishes in the sink, and Mark’s side profile and Renjun’s back. There’s no facial features on them yet, but somehow it does look like himself, with his sweater and jeans and everything he’s wearing, and Mark looks focused on his pages. It’s quick and small but Renjun’s never seen his kitchen drawn, or himself or Mark. Or his cake. It even has the sprinkles on it.

“This is- that’s… that’s pretty,” Renjun tells him, like he’s stumbling, “pretty cool.”

Jeno puffs another laugh, like he’s embarrassed this time, and just stands there, in Renjun’s entrance hallway, a room slightly darker than the rest of the apartment. “Thanks.”

Renjun gives the drawing another smile before propping the notebook against the wall. He fills in the empty spaces on the left with his neat, tiny writing. He eyes Jeno for a second.

It’s that moment that Renjun gets hit with the somewhat intimate feeling of having someone stand in his own apartment, in his own little space. Jeno’s in his _hallway_ , as a guest, and he’s looking down at him. He wonders what he’s thinking about.

“Do you mind if look around?”

Jeno’s timid pout turns into a little _o_ shape forms with his lips. He moves his weight from one foot to the other.

“Oh, maybe…Maybe another time,” he says in an attempt to make it sound casual, but Renjun senses him getting flustered so he gives it back. There’s an awkward smile on his lips as he receives it.

He seems to be pretty secretive.

Maybe his notebook is an intimate thing for him.

Then, as if suddenly changing his mind, Jeno opens his notebook again and rips the page out. “Here,” he breathes out quietly, fearfully. He shoves the paper in Renjun’s hand quickly before he has any time to react and throws the notebook back in his bag, already at the door, ready to leave.

With the cake casserole as well, the leather bag looks big and bulky.

Renjun looks at it again. He smiles at the paper, then erases the smile and looks at Jeno with big eyes, but doesn’t say anything more.

Not only does Jeno seem visibly conflicted and bashful now, but he also feels silly to thank him, so he just beams at him, and it’s strange, but he feels like honey again. A pleasant feeling - his insides tickle again.

Renjun hurries to unlock the door for him, and stands there, in the door frame, while Jeno’s facing him, already having stepped out of the apartment.

“You can come whenever,” Renjun tells him, and he does not know where the words are coming from – maybe from the honey in the pit of his stomach, “if you’re coming from class and want to eat something, I’m…here. I’m mostly here. Just ring for number five on the interphone.”

Jeno smiles and nods, “Sure.” He grips the strap on his black tube waves his other hand. “Bye, Renjun!”

Renjun gives him a sheepish smile in return. “Bye.”

And when the door is closed and locked again, Renjun presses his back into it, paper in hand. He closes his eyes for a short moment. Inhaling, there’s a hint of Jeno’s smell left right there, so he doesn’t move for a while. It smells of someone else, or something new, and that smell is in his _house_ , surrounding him. It’s pleasant, unknown, minty, but it quickly melts together with the normal smell of the hallway. Shoes and incense and him and Mark.

Then he steps into the kitchen again, where Mark is taking a break from studying.

“That kind of made me crave pizza,” he yawns.

“I don’t think he have frozen pizza. Should we order?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, and decides to close all his books and stack them ontop of eachother on the far corner of the table. He scoops another finger of cream and icing from the cake plate.


	4. cold season - this is only the beginning

Donghyuck and Jeno’s small hallway is crammed, with the four of them shimming around, saying their goodbyes, letting out the last laughs and trying to find their respective shoes. There’s not enough room for even two people to bend down to tie their shoelaces, so they keep bumping into each other. The fact that Donghyuck’s bike’s there is not helping.

“Bye Jeno, be good while I’m gone!” Donghyuck jokes, zipping up his coat.

Jeno’s wearing a loose shirt and his regular pyjama pants, standing with his back against the far back wall, just to see them out.

He just snorts in Donghyuck’s direction, but it’s good enough of an answer for the latter. He turns around to Mark and Renjun, “You guys ready?”

Mark is still tying his laces.

“In a second, in a minute!”

Donghyuck squints his eyes, gripping the handlebars of his bike.

“I’ll be late to yoga,” he says.

Mark mumbles something in his chin and finally stands up, smoothing out his jacket. He picks up his bag off the floor and, since he’s closest to the door, takes it upon himself to twist the key in the lock and open it. He steps out of the apartment just so there’s more room to move around, Renjun following, having been dressed and ready to go for minutes now.

With Donghyuck, Jeno walks to the doorway as well, but he stays there to wave at them.

Donghyuck manages to get his bike out and he’s now standing next to it. They’re all coated up, gloves on their hands and zippers done up to their chins.

“Bye, everyone,” Jeno says, shifting his weight onto the door, gripping the handle. As he eyes them, he starts slightly swinging left to right, at once with the door.

Renjun secures the scarf around his neck one more time. While Mark and Donghyuck are fumbling with the bike, deciding how to carry it down the stairs, Renjun keeps on eyeing Jeno. Silent, questioning, just trying to get his attention, just to have one more moment with him, something. Everyone’s said goodbye already, but he’s still searching for something.

His insistent glances go unnoticed – Jeno’s concerned with the two boys almost dropping the bike down the stairs.

Renjun makes a small sound as disappointment starts tickling at his stomach.

“Hm…”

He makes way for the stairs, where Mark just decided to pick up Donghyuck’s bike and carry it in his arms for the next six floors. Donghyuck’s trying to convince him to give it back to him.

“I got it, I got it,” he says.

“No, you…”

It’s obvious he’s struggling, but he’s already gone down a floor. Renjun’s still at the top of the stairs.

Before taking his first step down, he twists his neck barely to peek behind him, at the door which seems still to be opened. Someone’s still standing there, swinging from one foot to the other.

The movement makes Renjun turn more, but just his neck. He keeps his gloved hand on the rail and looks at Jeno once again.

From the doorframe, Jeno stills. Their eyes meet – Renjun freezes for a second - and Jeno bites down on his smile which can still be seen in the corners of his mouth. His eyes smile a little, too, and Renjun can’t help to do the same.

“Bye,” Jeno mouths silently, just for him.

Renjun’s lips pucker to keep the smile to himself.

Then, quickly, he twists his neck back and starts skipping down the stairs without glancing back again, already trying to catch up with Mark and Donghyuck. Until he meets up with them a few floors down, he lets his smile rip at his cheeks and his body buzz like a bee.

Oh, to be a jar of honey.

“I do this every day, let me carry it!”

Mark just sighs and passes by him, still visibly struggling to not drop the bike. Donghyuck follows him slowly, stair by stair.

Renjun rubs his hands together, then he wipes at his mouth with one just to save himself some time to swallow down his grin. He, too, takes one slow step after the other behind Donghyuck, the soles of their shoes slamming against the concrete of the stairs. Like this, they manage to exit the apartment building, and Mark finally lets go of the bike on the ground with a big sigh. He rolls his shoulders a few times, and they crack.

“Thank you.”

Donghyuck gives him a look and mounts the bike and walks like that for a few more steps alongside them.

“Well, the book meeting was fun today,” he tells them. Renjun nods. “I’ll get going, you two, I don’t want to be late.”

He puts one foot on the pedal.

“Wait, do you not have anything on your head?” Mark stops him. He grabs his shoulder so he stays in place, and Donghyuck does.

“Oh, shoot, I forgot mine upstairs.”

Mark doesn’t say anything and just takes off his own beanie – old and cool, just like Mark likes his clothes to be – and puts it on Donghyuck’s head.

It looks a bit weird on him, totally not his style, but even if Donghyuck might not be a hipster and his hair sticks out in unusual ways under it, he still reddens in the face.

“What if you’ll get cold?” he asks, letting his hands fall from the handlebars into his lap.

Mark shrugs. “We’re taking the subway, anyway.”

Renjun’s almost jumping from one foot to the other; he watches, from afar, giving them a little bit of space.

Mark glances behind him at Renjun, then back at Donghyuck.

“Okay,” he says suddenly, “we’re going. Bye.”

He turns around and takes Renjun by the sleeve of his coat, dragging him through the parking lot in the direction of the subway station. Renjun, startled, has time just to wave one more time in Donghyuck’s direction and to notice the lingering eyes. God, that hat looks so stupid on him but he makes it cute with his pout and side, held back smile.

“Bye, Donghyuck! See you next week!”

The sun’s about to set, making the sky a combination of grey and yellow.

When they’re halfway through the parking lot and Renjun’s coat is released, he looks back to see him biking away in the distance. He turns to Mark, who’s been quiet all along.

“So?”

Mark shrugs. Without a hat on, his black hair is all messy.

“I’ll tell you when we get home.”

His cheeks and nose are dusted with pink.


	5. cold season - this is only the beginning

Somebody rings number five on the interphone, some days later.

Renjun leaves his book upside down and stumbles out of the armchair, running out of his bedroom and into the entry hallway. The ringing keeps on going.

He presses the interphone button to talk, “Mark?” he asks into the speaker.

“Huh?” a voice replies, accompanied by street noises and static. “No, not Mark.”

A familiar laugh follows.

“Donghyuck?” Renjun asks, his brows shooting up. He doesn’t say anything else and just lets him in by pressing another button.

Until Donghyuck walks the three flights of stairs to his door, he manages to put a book mark in-between the pages of his book and brush the breadcrumbs off the tablecloth. It’s not the cleanest kitchen, he thinks to himself, but it’s cleaner than how Mark usually leaves it. He considers changing out of shirt he’s slept in that has turned somewhat damp, but there’s already a knock on his door.

“Coming!”

He makes his way into the hallway again, then peeps into the door hole to check if it’s really Donghyuck.

And it is, Donghyuck’s there, standing in his hallway with his big bike, but next to him is Jeno, bouncing off one leg to the other, looking around.

Renjun takes a step back as quietly as he can and stares at the door like it’s going to tell him what to do next. His fingers go up to brush his hair, then bring a fistful of his sleeping shirt to meet his nose halfway to sniff it. It smells of sweat and deodorant and Mark’s incense.

So he rushes back past rails of shoes and house slippers, almost stumbles over a boot while running, and makes way straight for his bedroom. He throws around his clothes from the laundry basket until he finds one clean t-shit, which he hastily throws on after undressing out of his old one.

He’s back in the hallway, smelling of laundry detergent, and he finally turns the key in the lock and opens the door.

“Hey,” he greets, a bit out of breath. “How’s it going?”

“Hi, Renjun,” Donghyuck smiles, gripping the straps of his backpack with one gloved hand.

Jeno waves at him. Renjun gives him a little smile in return.

“We both finished class at the same time so we thought we could stop by to hang out for a bit before going home.”

“Or to just say hello, if you’re busy,” Jeno fills in. He has the same brown leather bag with a strap over his shoulder and the knitted hat pulled over his ears. It must be really cold outside.

Renjun opens the door wider, signalling them to come in. “I’m not busy, you can come inside.”

They do; Renjun makes room for them to take off their coats and shoes while he stands in the doorframe of the kitchen. The bike manages to fit against the wall.

“We’ll call beforehand next time,” Donghyuck laughs, taking off his gloves, shoving them in his pocket and stretching his red fingers like they’ve been frosted.

“No, you don’t need to call. You can just come up, I like having company.”

At that Donghyuck smiles happily, and Renjun takes both their coats and puts them up in the dresser. With their shoes untied and left on the floor, they’re invited in the kitchen.

When he passes by him, Jeno smiles silently towards Renjun, as another form of greeting that’s just for him.

“Hi,” Renjun means to say, but the word dies out in his mouth and he ends up just whispering it. In the tiny space, Jeno has to squeeze inside the kitchen, so his big, broad shoulders brush against him. He smells of cold, fresh air from outside with the faintest hint of minty cologne.

Renjun’s the last one to step into the kitchen and he turns on the light, even if there’s still a couple of minutes left until sunset.

His two guests leave their bags on a chair and take their seats on the small sofa at the table. Compared to him, they’re both dressed nice, with jeans and ironed shirts. Jeno has a big blazer over his white shirt.

Renjun thinks he should’ve changed out of his sweatpants. He turns around.

“If I knew you were coming, I would’ve made something, some biscuits, anything…” He rummages through his cupboards, opening and closing the doors, trying to find something. There’s no proper food he can serve, so he takes out a box of tea bags.

“Oh, no, don’t worry, we brought pizzas!” Jeno says, taking both his and Donghyuck’s bags and pulling out one bent cardboard box of frozen pizzas from each one. He hands them over to Renjun.

“Oh, thanks!” and while he squats down to start preheating the oven, “Do you guys eat anything else other than frozen pizza? Because so far, that’s the only thing I’ve seen you eat.”

“That’s not true, we eat stuff you bring for the book club,” Donghyuck says from the table.

“That’s once a week.”

“We eat all sorts of frozen stuff. And Donghyuck buys fresh fruit from the market on his way home from yoga class and I make two omelettes for the both of us in the morning.” He puffs a laugh. “So, we’re really relying on what you bring over.”

That makes Renjun laugh a little.

He does not sit down next to them until he’s finished boiling the water, turning on the radio, putting the two pizzas into the oven and bringing three of his porcelain cups accompanied by plates and a teacup on the table. He cuts up a big slice of lemon for each of them, and when he pours the tea in the cups, the lemon flows to the surface.

“You can smoke here if you’d like,” he tells Jeno, eyes focused on pouring the tea, “Mark does it all the time.”

Jeno turns his head and waits for Donghyuck’s approval, which he gets in the form of a shoulder shrug.

“You were gonna do it either way,” is his greenlight to fish out a pack of cigarettes and lighter from one pocket of his bag. He stretches out the pack in Renjun’s direction in a silent invitation, to which he just shakes his head. He very seldom feels the need to smoke. Today is not the case.

Jeno stands up and goes to stand in front of the window. Renjun tells him that he can smoke while sitting on the sofa, he really doesn’t mind, but Jeno just shakes his head. He says he doesn’t want to smoke them up. So, he pulls the curtains to the side and opens the window, revealing the white, monotone sky and the leafless trees swinging around from the wind.

Jeno presses his lips hard around the cigarette and puts one hand in front of the tip, shielding it from the wind while he lights it. Renjun watches him breathe out his first smoke, eyebrows all knitted together and eyes sharp to shield him from the wind.

“Is…Mark here?” Donghyuck asks him, and Renjun notices the little puff Jeno lets out into the wind at that.

“Oh, no,” he slides the little lemon cup with the matching plate in his direction, “he’s in class, I believe, but he should be here soon.”

He glances at the clock on the wall.

“Or, no, he might be on his way home now.”

Donghyuck hums and takes a sip of his tea. The room is gradually getting colder and colder, the wind sending shivers down their backs. Jeno has found the small ashtray Mark keeps on the window sill and is using it, tapping the cigarette over it every now and then. The wind blows some of it off. There’s a pop song on the radio, but the wind makes the signal interrupt sometimes, bringing in static.

“I wonder if it’s going to rain or snow,” Jeno says, gripping the sill with his hands, bending down once again to further admire what’s in front of him. Because of his green, fluffy blazer, he might not be very cold, but Renjun’s bare arms already have goosebumps on them. “You have a very nice view from here.”

Renjun hums, a little with worry, looking past Jeno’s shoulder. “I bet Mark didn’t bring an umbrella with him today.”

“No, he did,” Donghyuck says, making the two of them whip their heads back to stare at him dumbfoundedly. “I mean, I asked him the same thing this morning. And he said he did.”

“You asked him this morning if he has an umbrella with him?” Renjun asks, his eyes a little squinted.

“Through text.”

Donghyuck takes another sip of his tea.

Jeno and Renjun share a quiet look.

“You text?” Jeno asks a second before shutting his mouth with a cigarette.

“No,” he defends himself, “just sometimes.”

Jeno just shrugs, stumping the bud in the ashtray. He closes the window, pulls back the curtains and sits on the sofa next to his roommate to sip on his tea.

And so when Mark unlocks the door with a heavy sigh, he kicks off his wet shoes and finds the three of them talking around the table, radio playing poorly as a background sound and some cups and a teapot in the sink. There’s also something in the oven.

“Hey?” he greets, like it’s a question, one eyebrow raised. He stops in the doorframe of the kitchen for a few good seconds, his breathing ragged and hair is all over the place. “There’s a bike in there.”

“Welcome back,” Renjun says. “It’s Donghyucks’.”

“Hello.” That’s Jeno. “Did it start raining?”

The momentary pause ends and Mark regains his thoughts, walking over to the tap to fill a glass with water and gulp it all down in one go. That leaves him breathless as he puts the glass back on the counter.

“No, but I did step in most puddles I came across with on the way,” he says.

Renjun looks down at his socks, and all around the toes they’re soaking wet. “Why would you step in puddles?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he presses, then turns to Donghyuck and lowers his voice, “I thought you were busy after class?”

And Donghyuck shrugs his shoulders with this smug, nonchalant face. There’s a hint of a smile that he tries to push down. “Changed my mind.”

The only reply Mark gives him is a little “oh.” Then he eyes the pizzas in the oven.

“I thought we should hang out for a bit. And maybe you could give us all a Tarot reading like you promised?” he adds which catches Mark off guard. He keeps going from eyeing the oven to eyeing Donghyuck.

Renjun and Jeno share another look.

“Oh, sure,” he agrees, with the only condition that they wait for him to get into dry clothes first.

“So,” Donghyuck starts as Mark leaves the kitchen, “did you decide what you’re going to do after this school year is over?”

Renjun freezes, this uncomfortable icy feeling spreading through his limbs.

“Huh?” he looks around the room, taking his time to answer. “I haven’t,” he says. The corners of his mouth twist downwards.

There’s a moment of just radio songs and rustling of wind from outside. He grits his teeth, unclenching a second later.

“I mean, they keep emailing me, telling me that if I’m ready I can go back when the new semester starts, which I am _not_ ready to do. If I were, I would’ve asked for _one semester off_ ,” he uses air quotation marks with his fingers, “not a _gap_ _year_.”

His fingers come down on the table to play with the strings on the tablecloth. Damn, these types of questions get to him.

Mark comes back with a deck of cards in his hands. He’s taken off his white-collar shirt and wet socks, and he looks a tad bit happier, now wearing a big hoodie and some sweatpants. His school bag is still in the kitchen, next to the other ones, but he leaves it there, and instead checks on the pizzas once again, finding that they’ve baked enough. He must be hungry after all his classes. With a kitchen glove he takes them out.

“I see. How are you spending your time, then?”

Mark turns around with the pizza tray in his hand and gives Donghyuck a _stop asking him_ glare. It makes Donghyuck glue his lips shut in a tight line, but the question’s already out.

Renjun doesn’t mind answering that much. Only a bit.

“I’ve been…going here and there, trying out new coffee shops from around here, reading a lot…I’ve been baking, I - I’m watching movies with Mark in the evening, things like that. Not a lot.”

Donghyuck doesn’t dare respond with anything other than a nod. Mark’s still glaring a bit while transferring the pizzas from the tray to plates.

“That’s not true,” he pops in to say, bringing two plates on the table along with a knife. “You do a lot of things. We have the book club, and you cook for the both of us every day, you cleaned and made this apartment look really pretty…”

“You’re making me sound like a housewife,” Renjun laughs.

“ _Not_ like a housewife!” Mark tells him. “Renjun, you took a year off from college, you didn’t retire!”

“He’s sort of right,” Jeno says. “You can do all sorts of things in a year.”

“Like yoga. Come to my yoga class.”

Renjun rolls his eyes a little, smiling. “Fine. I might.”

“Use this time in your advantage,” Mark says.

They’ve had this conversation countless times, just the two of them, at dinner or at breakfast on the weekends when Mark’s home. He knows Mark only wants to help, but he doesn’t seem to understand Renjun’s reasoning every time – he _doesn’t_ know what he wants to do. He’s just stuck, and time passes by him like it normally does, only this time, he’s not moving alongside it. He’s left behind.

Mark’s a really good listener, but no matter how many pieces of advice he gives, Renjun’s still in his little slump.

“Or, Jeno’s school is looking for nude models for their figure drawing class. You have a nice body, maybe you could try,” Donghyuck suggests, his eyebrows wiggling in the direction of his roommate.

Jeno slaps him on the arm.

Renjun’s eyes widen and he lets out a laugh in disbelief. “Oh my God! I am _not_ doing that.” He feels his cheeks burning, his arms unconsciously wrap around his small frame. He unwraps them and takes a slice of pizza to eat.

“Do you want me to pull some cards for you in this area? Maybe it will give you some clarity,” Mark’s already shuffling his cards, but Renjun refuses.

“No, thank you, you always do and they always tell me the same thing,” he mumbles with his mouth full.

“What do they tell you?” Jeno asks.

Renjun clicks his tongue and says it like he’s dreading it. “That I need to take my focus off my current problem and find something else to place it on.”

“That’s not bad advice,” Jeno nods.

“Well, I don’t have much else to think about,” he mumbles in his pizza slice.

“What’d you say?”

Renjun only shakes his head.

“Do you want me to give _you_ a reading?” Mark turns to Jeno. The latter only smiles and eyes Donghyuck.

“Yeah, but after Donghyuck. He’s more eager than me.”

It’s Donghyuck’s turn to pinch his thigh – Jeno yelps – and scoff. “Whatever.”

Mark ignores it all and drags his chair all around the table to sit right in front of Donghyuck. He shuffles his cards, briefly explains how he’s going to do this and averts his eyes from any stares the person right in front of him is giving. He keeps his gaze straight down at his cards, shuffling them like he’s about to play poker, but his chair is so close to the sofa, their knees are touching.

Renjun sees it and is all giddy again, and when he looks up at Jeno, he’s got this little side smile as well, but he keeps his eyes low, running a finger alongside the mouth of a water glass.

“What do you want to ask the cards? I can do yes-or-no questions, near future overall predictions, or any area you’re interested to know stuff in,” he explains. “Only for the near future, though. Like, money, career, health…”

“Love,” Donghyuck says abruptly, another obvious attempts to get Mark to look him in the eye, which finally works. Mark goes from burning hot cheeks to burning holes into Donghyuck’s smug little face. Then to neutral, his default appearance.

“Love it is, then.” He shuffles the cards a few more times.

“It’s like watching a play,” Jeno whispers to Renjun’s ear from the other side of the table. His breath is warm and Renjun can really, really feel it on the side of his face, but he manages to not show a reaction to that, only laugh quietly a little.

“Oh, right, I forgot completely,” he remembers, and when he turns to his side Jeno’s nose almost bumps into his, “I have Donghyuck’s book for the next meeting.”

Renjun drags his chair out and stands up while Mark puts the first card on the table. Donghyuck follows his every hand movement.

Jeno gives him a look, a silent question as to what Donghyuck’s book has to do with anything right now.

“The book for next week is actually a play,” Renjun whispers to him with a smile, and Jeno seems to have understood. “Be right back,” he announces, leaving the kitchen, but he’s pretty sure it went unnoticed.

Closing the door behind him, he’s now in the very dark hallway, so devoid of light that if it weren’t his own apartment, he’d be walking slowly with a hand on the wall to avoid bumping into something. But he knows where everything is, and he makes his way to the bathroom first – he also takes time to brush his hair a couple times with an actual hair brush and spray some more deodorant, just for good measure. Then, he blindly walks back into his bedroom, where he turns on the light.

Before taking the book he needed to give to Donghyuck, he gathers the clothes he’s throws on the carpet and folds eat of them neatly, sitting on the corner of his bed; then he turns off the light and leaves.

With the first half a step he’s taken outside his bedroom, he slams his head into something semi hard, semi soft. He yelps with a loud cry that quickly dies in his throat, when the warm thing, _Jeno_ , shushes him. In the complete darkness of the unlit hallway, Renjun’s eyes take a few moments to adjust in order to make out Jeno’s facial figures. He’s looking right at him.

“Let’s not go back there for a while, yeah?” Jeno whispers to him, signalling with his head towards the kitchen door, all warm and close and low. He’s trapping him between the bedroom door and his big body, leaving enough room for Renjun to slip away comfortably. But he doesn’t leave. He takes a step back – Jeno’s too close to his face for him to breathe properly – and his back hits the door, book flat against his chest.

“Why not?” he breathes out, imagining his own breath must be reaching Jeno’s breath, too. He shivers in his place and oh, he feels so small. Jeno’s like a big, big bear, with his broad shoulders and lean figure and deep voice. It feels like he’s about to show his fangs and devour him, eat him whole, like he’s a prey, but Jeno just smiles.

“Because they were having a _moment_ back there!” he half whispers, half shouts, and the smile grows bigger until Renjun’s brows furrow completely.

“A…what? Who?”

“What do you mean, who? Donghyuck and Mark!”

“They were having a moment?” he repeats dumbly.

Jeno smiles at him wide, teeth and dimples showing. He nods. He could just take a step back and not talk right in his face anymore – Renjun’s not running anywhere – but he doesn’t. He stays there, letting his heat emanate like an aura around him. Renjun feels it, and he’s not moving either. “Yeah,” it comes as such a breathy whisper. Jeno leans a little further, and Renjun’s scared he’s going to lose his balance so in a split second he stretches a hand out to catch his fluffy blazer sleeve. But Jeno’s not falling off his feet, he’s just bouncing from one foot to the other. “Yeah, they were talking about love and stuff and it felt so intimate, I told them I was going to the bathroom, I didn’t want to ruin it. Mark had a hand on his knee-”

“ _Mark_ had a hand on his _knee_?” Renjun interrupts, laughing in disbelief. “Wow, he’s unbelievable.”

He laughs again, looking away at the kitchen door.

“I know! They were all touchy and,” he exemplifies their touch exchange by resting his fingertips for less than a second on Renjun’s thigh, going up to the hip bone, “and they were laughing and…and I just had to leave. I don’t even think they noticed. They were in their own little bubble.”

Renjun shivers, letting out a nervous laughter, short and quiet. He feels the faint pressure of fingertips on his hip, they’re there, _they’re still there_ , until they’re not. Jeno moves them away and with that, takes a step back. It’s only now that Renjun feels the actual cold of the dark hallway.

And he backs away until his back hits the door opposite from Renjun’s bedroom, leaning against it. His black figure almost takes up most space of the doorframe – or at least that’s how Renjun sees it. Renjun presses harder on his door, like it’s about to disintegrate, disappear and he’ll fall flat on his back on his bedroom carpet. That way he’d get away from a pair of eyes, glossy and grey and barely visible, but so fixated on him.

He wonders if Jeno notices the contrast between them, if having to bend his neck down to look at him while talking is something he thinks about or if he just does it unconsciously, naturally, without giving it much thought.

“What do we do now? Do we hang around here?” Renjun whispers blindly in the darkness. His voice reaches the wall opposite him – it’s not that big of a hallway – but it’s not fully registered.

“What did you say?”

His mind drifts off to the thought of whether or not Jeno has noticed his small, frail frame and tiny wrists and all that. He _could_ , if he wanted, grab Renjun’s both wrists with one hand, and that alone would immobilize him. He doubts he could outpower him, there’s no way he’d be able to break away from that.

“Did you ask what he should do?” Jeno pushes.

He should stop thinking about that.

“Yeah.”

“We could just stay here for a bit then come back.”

Renjun pushes his shoulder blades further into the wood of the door and makes an approving noise.

Instead of hanging out in the hallway, he could just open the door and sit in his room. They should do that, he thinks, but inviting Jeno, out of all people, in his bedroom seems too much.

Having silence fall ontop of them is easier when they can barely make out the shapes of each other, but Renjun’s mind is in a constant state of buzzing. He scratches the back of his neck, pulling at the short hairs there, then at his arm and tummy. He’s itchy all over, he’s tingly, no, he’s _nervous_.

“Did your classes go okay today?” His voice is small but he makes an effort to make it a little louder for Jeno.

There’s no real reason why they keep whispering – they could even turn on the light – but neither of them makes the move to change something.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at him, “they were fine. Long, tiring but okay.”

“Did you…draw?”

There’s that stupid question again. Even Jeno laughs.

“I only have one day of lectures,” he explains. “Rest of the time is spent in art studios.”

Renjun makes an amazed string of _mmmh_. “And…how is it?”

“How is what?”

It’s good that they can only hear each other. “Art studios,” Renjun says. “I’ve never been to one.”

“Oh.” It’s followed by a long hum, deep in his throat, as he’s thinking. Renjun can imagine he’s furrowing his eyebrows like he usually does. “They’re really different. There can’t be more than ten people at once in it, and it’s really…How can I put it? Liberating? You come in, do your thing quietly at a desk or easel, and you have people that also do their own thing around you, whatever assignment the teachers give.”

Renjun hums as well.

“Each studio has its own character, the walls are always decorated with stuff… it’s nice.”

Silence for a few seconds.

“And it smells of paint, _all_ the time.”

That extracts a laugh from Renjun, high pitched as he always laughs. Jeno puffs some laughs too.

“That’s really cool.”

They’re left there, smiling at eachother in the dark.

“I only took theoretical classes,” Renjun says, then adds, “when I went.”

He shouldn’t have opened up that subject, because he feels Jeno is about to ask something about his college days, so he changes the subject. “Should we go back?”

He’s already ungluing his body off the door and catches Jeno slight shrug of shoulders. “Okay,” he says, and as they get closer to the kitchen door, their voices go lower and lower again.

Renjun presses his ear against it before pressing down on the knob, and all he hears are voices, mushed together, not making out any words.

“They’re talking,” he informs Jeno. The latter raises his shoulders a bit, also unsure of what to do, but in the end urges Renjun to open it slowly.

It’s obvious that whatever moment they might’ve had, it’s all gone by now. Their backs are slightly turned to the door, but it’s still visible that Mark’s all sighs and pouts and Donghyuck’s rolling his eyes. They’re not even looking at each other.

“This doesn’t look like a _moment_ to me,” Renjun whispers from the doorframe.

“No – let me speak!” Mark groans loudly.

“I swear, it was much more romantic than this,” Jeno whispers back, and grips Renjun’s shoulder to stop him from going in, pushing him a few steps in. Renjun almost stumbles off his feet. Jeno leaves his hand there.

“I _didn’t_ say you’re never going to find love – don’t interrupt me again!” he points his finger and so Donghyuck closes his mouth, for now. “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place! You might need to let some towers collide for others to-”

“Is this advice from the cards or from _you_?”

“Why would it be advice from _me_ -”

“Well, because it feels more like you trying to sass me up about my love life and cover it up by saying you’re getting messages from the Universe.”

Donghyuck folds his arms on his chest.

“I am not getting that many messages from _nobody_ these days,” Mark points his finger at him again aggressively, “Universe included. I just told you the overall meanings of each card and combined them together, I’m not saying anything else!” He throws his hands in the air, and Renjun thinks that no matter how calm Mark might think he is himself, he gets feisty almost just as quickly at Donghyuck.

“So you’re telling me that you’re not making them up, that you know – how many are these? Seventy?” he shuffles through the remaining cards a few times, “Seventy something meanings of each card, and you’re not letting your own feelings interfere?”

Mark quiets down. “My feelings? _What_ feelings?”

It’s now that they finally gather their gazes from everywhere across the room and look at each other, and Donghyuck says, between gritted teeth, “I meant _thoughts_.”

“You’re right, this _is_ a moment!” Renjun gasps, but keeps it low, and spins on his heel to see Jeno. They accidentally bump forehead to nose again, and Jeno grips his arm strong to keep him from falling off.


	6. cold season - this is only the beginning

Renjun’s almost all the way across the parking lot when something hits him on the back of his head – a snowball. He stops.

“Ah!”

The snow crumbles down on his neck and falls under his collar, bits quickly melting and running down his back, making him squirm.

He turns around and sees him there, slim figure with the tassel on his head, alone in the empty parking lot, only surrounded by cars. He’s looking at him from a distance like a lighthouse over the sea of white snow.

“Hey!” Jeno shouts. “Sorry! Did I hit you hard?”

Renjun squints to see him better. He rubs at the back of his head while also scraping some snow off from his coat. He shakes his head in a no, but Jeno might be too far to notice that.

“No, it’s fine!” he yells back, raising himself on the tip of his toes.

The wind gushes between them.

“Where are you going?”

“To your place!”

“Huh?” Jeno yells, along with the wind. “What’d you say?”

“To your place!”

Jeno starts walking over. “Me too, wait up!”

He quickens his pace and runs across the parking lot, leather bag flopping against his side. Renjun waits for him.

“Hey,” he greets again when he’s near him. Renjun opens his mouth to reply but he’s quickly shushed with two arms that wrap around his shoulders, and Jeno just slams his body against his with an airy laugh.

Renjun’s so surprised his breath hitches audibly, whole body going stiff like a cat who doesn’t want to be picked up. Jeno’s hands lay flat on the back of his coat and though it is harder to hug between all those thick layers of winter clothes, he still manages to squeeze him tightly, even if it feels like being hugged by an inflatable toy.

In a short second, Renjun’s out of breath, for multiple reasons. He keeps quiet, still and stiff, until he warms up a little and picks up his hands from around his own body and places his freezing, red fingers lightly on Jeno’s coat, feeling the wool texture as he very subtly moves them around for a few moments.

Oh, he’s so big, he swallows him whole with his big coat.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Jeno says from above him, almost in his hair. Renjun feels his cheek just above his temple, moving as he speaks.

Renjun shimmies a tiny step further, his shoes sliding through the slippery snow, until he finds with his forehead the opening of Jeno’s coat, where a few buttons are undone and his sweater underneath is showing. He settles for that place.

He’s missed Jeno, he wants to say, but he finds it hard to speak. Jeno’s cold all over, cold as the snowy afternoon with the last drops of light, but Renjun feels like a summer day.

In a moment, Jeno starts swinging both of them from left to right, from one foot to the other, extracting a big laugh from Renjun. They must be looking like two children right now, and Renjun hugs him tighter.

Jeno lets go to look at him.

“What are you doing at my place?” he asks, smiling.

Renjun releases the dry lip he’s been munching on. “I came to bring Donghyuck his book for next week’s meeting.”

“Oh, cool. Come on up, he’s inside,” Jeno tells him, and they make their way through the snow to the front of the apartment building, where he takes out a key card and unlocks the door. Leaving behind the crispness of white underneath their boots, they walk up the six flights of stairs together.


	7. cold season - this is only the beginning

Jeno has a very short attention span when it comes to reading, it seems.

“How’s your life going?” he asks Renjun, letting his book fall on his lap.

He’s really not a good reader, and Renjun’s been warned from the beginning, but he still wanted to try reading the boys’ next week meeting book. It seems like he’s just not that invested in it.

Renjun’s eyes slip from the end of a sentence to the boy sitting on the floor with his legs crossed.

“Generally, you mean?” He pauses, glancing at the ceiling for a split second. “I can’t say that it’s the best right now.”

He’s holding his own book above his face. His whole body is splayed out on Jeno’s duvet, dark green and itchy.

“How come?”

Jeno’s room is by far the most interesting thing he’s ever seen in his life. It’s like he’s breathing in and out art stuff, paint, paper and pencils. It’s everywhere, it’s so all over the place that it’s hard to believe Donghyuck is living in the same apartment. His clothes, both clean and dirty, Renjun assumes, are scattered everywhere, from the desk chair to the bed to the floor, and the books in his shelves aren’t arranged in any order, just stacked on top of each other, even on his wardrobe, where they reach the ceiling.

It’s a messy room.

Jeno sits in the middle of it, on his carpet, with a pair of jeans, a sweater and a pair of big, fluffy socks on his feet – Donghyuck gave those to him. Jeno wasn’t allowed to say no.

“I’ve just been…I don’t know. Stuck.”

It sparks an interest in Jeno because he makes a surprised sound and climbs on the bed next to him.

“You weren’t going in the right direction, then.”

Renjun doesn’t say anything. As subtly as he can, he twists his face without moving his eyes from the ceiling and sniffs the air around him.

As expected, Jeno smells of cleanliness. Soap and mint.

He does that sometimes with Mark, too; when he smokes in their kitchen, deep in thought, Renjun would come in just to take a big breath in of the smoke Mark exhales, then leave.

Jeno keeps his suffocating eyes on him – Renjun knows it’s there. He’s got used to it, somehow, though it still makes him nervous. He’s never been looked at so intently.

“Care to elaborate?” Jeno presses.

Renjun’s book has fallen flat on his chest now.

“Not really, no.”

Silence, only the sound of the heater buzzing quietly in the corner. He hears Jeno exhaling though his nose, long.

Renjun looks at him just by twisting his neck again. “I really envy you, Jeno,” he says, “you’re… Well, I don’t know what you are but you’re really something.”

Jeno lets out one of those sequences of small laughters.

“Please don’t envy me, yeah? Everybody’s got his own stuff.” Jeno keeps his stare. “You can appreciate me if you want. But there’s nothing to envy here.”

Renjun nods, silently thinking it over. It might be true, and there’s the sudden need to roll over a little closer, to let himself be a bit taken care of, but he doesn’t act upon it. Instead, he sighs. It’s hard for him to put his thoughts in order, let alone his words.

“I might be spending too much time with Mark,” Jeno continues, “but I get the feeling that there’s some negative stuff surrounding you.”

“You started seeing my aura, too?” Renjun laughs. “Mark tried cleaning it once, but I don’t know if it worked.”

Jeno smiles.

“No, it’s sort of written on your face. You look sad.”

In a second, Renjun pouts and looks away, back at the ceiling. He tries to bring the corners of his lips upwards slightly, to raise his eyebrows. He wonders is he looks uglier when he’s frowning. “Really? Sorry.”

“What’s up?” Jeno asks, rolling on his back and stretching his arms until his bones crack. Unlike Renjun, his whole body doesn’t fit horizontally, so his hands and fluffy socks hang around in the air. His brown hair also flops down on the green duvet.

“I don’t think I want to depress you with my worries.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

“I feel kinda weird telling someone about it,” Renjun says, and Jeno stays quiet, keeps his gaze focused, and it can only be interpreted as an open space to keep talking. Renjun does, just because Jeno’s eyes fix him so terribly overwhelming and talking gives him something else to focus on. “I guess… I mean, I always thought I’d reach this age and I would have _done_ something. Like, something big.”

“Something big?”

“Yeah, something _good_ big. Because I’ve done something big so far, I took this gap year, but that’s not what I meant.” He pauses to let out a thinking noise, a hum. “I’m wasting my time! I should’ve known where I was headed by now, you know, ‘cus I’ve always been one of those gifted students in school,” he uses air quotations, “and every teacher told me I’m just naturally talented, and smart and good and quiet, which was a good thing, because I was too shy to cause trouble and they liked that.”

Thinking about it, Renjun puckers his lips and moves them a little. The duvet doesn’t reach his skin anywhere else except for a little space between his hair and the back of his neck, and it itches there a bit, enough to be noticeable. He wonders how Jeno copes with it when it’s summer.

“Yeah, so,” he concludes, after he realizes Jeno’s not saying anything. “I just had this big expectation that I’m going to follow the plan I made when I was in high school and that nothing’s going to change, and I just though… I thought I was going to be really, really good at something by now.”

Jeno doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, he hums.

“Yeah, I get that.”

He hums again. “But I don’t know if anyone’s really, really good at something in college. I mean, just the fact that you want to be good is already better than a lot of other things for this age.”

“Thanks,” Renjun says, the word coming out at once with a sigh.

“Are you trying to be the best?”

“I think so…I’ve always thought that it’s not worth it if I’m not.”

Jeno shimmies closer. The green duvet crinkles up.

“Who are you trying to be better than?”

Renjun closes his eyes, stays like that for a bit, then opens them and says, “The whole world, I guess.”

Jeno hums.

“Renjun, what do you want to do?”

He’s not asking about this moment right now, Renjun realizes; his voice is serious and his eyes just give him this look – it’s hard to understand – but they look so deep into him, past Renjun’s eyes, into something much more delicate, easy to break, hard to reveal. But Jeno managed to reach it.

Hearing his own name coming from Jeno’s mouth, makes him feel grounded, here. And so, like there’s something speaking from inside of him, maybe the buzzing of his honey-like blood, maybe something else, Renjun answers without a wavering of the voice, “I want to bake.”

Then, like the spell is broken, Renjun moves his eyes back up on the ceiling and puffs out a laugh. “Wow, that’s such a silly thing to say.”

The moment’s gone.

His smile remains on his lips, but it’s not an amused smile. It’s there just so he doesn’t frown. He rubs at his forehead and face, hiding his eyes.

Jeno rolls on his side, props his temple on his palm, elbow bent on the bed.

“So, you want to bake?”

Renjun shakes his head, like Jeno’s misheard him.

“It’s not like I can drop out of college to bake muffins my whole life!”

He looks over, just to check, and sees Jeno squinting.

“Why not?”

“Because-” Renjun jumps to sit crisscrossed, back straight. The book flies somewhere near him. “that’s -Did you hear what I said?! Drop out of college? So that I can _bake_?”

“What’s so wrong about that? There’s courses you can take, you can get a legit certificate out of it, just like Donghyuck’s getting his yoga one… And you don’t really have to drop out, you could do it as a side thing for now, you…”

Renjun pushes out one leg, hitting at Jeno’s hip.

“That’s ridiculous,”

“No, I’m…”

He pushes again until Jeno falls off the bed with a thud, a yelp and a small laugh.

“Fine,” he says, sitting back on the floor, picking back his book. “But think about it.”

Renjun doesn’t want to reply, but he does. “Okay.”

He opens his book, trying to find where he’s left off and tries to focus on the words. Both his gaze and thoughts wander around mindlessly. He lies back down, now on his belly, and looks at the pages in front of him.

“I’m sorry I pushed you,” Renjun says.

Jeno raises his eyes and smiles, then laughs. “That’s alright.”

He looks really warm when he’s smiling. Even his eyes smile.

Renjun goes back and forth from scanning letters in his book to watching Jeno’s profile, how he silently mouths the words as he reads them, how it takes him a while to finish reading a page.

The sun’s gone down.

When he opens his eyes again, he opens them in full darkness. Renjun repeatedly blinks, trying to comprehend the situation – his head feels mushy and his eyes have sleep in them, making blinking sting the tiniest amount.

He’s in total darkness, except for one spot in the further back corner of the room: a desk with a lamp turned on, at which Jeno can be seen sitting at a chair.

Renjun blinks again and raises one hand to rub his eyes with – this making the book he’s kept a finger in as a bookmark fall shut.

He rolls on his back, which sort of hurts, and just twists his neck to look at the lit spot. Jeno, at his desk, the lamp shining in his face, but Renjun can’t really see it from here. He sees his back, hunched, and it seems like he’s changed out of his blue jeans. He’s wearing his big, checkered sleeping pants.

He’s got one of his papers in front of him, a pencil in hand, and he’s quiet, the whole room is quiet.

This is one of Renjun’s favourite things to experience. Silence and darkness, perhaps a stillness of the whole world in his post-sleeping haze. And Jeno’s there, too, on his chair, unaware of the eyes taking him in.

Renjun can’t believe he actually fell asleep.

“What time is it?” he asks, and his voice comes out all croaky and raspy. It startles Jeno, who twits around in his chair.

“Hey,” he whispers, even if no one’s sleeping in the room anymore. “I don’t really know. It’s a bit late.”

Renjun hums and closes his eyes for a second.

“Hm. Why’d you let me fall asleep?”

“That book is really boring, I was also on the brink of falling asleep.”

Renjun hums again, now with a smile. The room is silent again, only now they’re exchanging gazes.

“Should I go?” Renjun murmurs. The sound of it leaves his mouth but gets lost somewhere along the way.

“What’d you say?”

“I should go.”

He’s slowly making his way up on his elbows, stretching like a cat. The mattress under him creaks, and he goes to check his phone, and when the bright, blue light hits him, he firstly squints, then gasps.

“Oh, God! I should really go!” then, to Jeno, “Why did you let me sleep for so long? It’s night time already!”

Jeno slowly shrugs his shoulders, not knowing what to answer.

“The subway’s going to be out in an hour,” he says, stumbling to his feet. Though dizzy, he picks up his book and phone, throwing them in his linen bag which he gets from the floor.

While he puts on his socks, Jeno speaks.

“You could stay over,” he says, and Renjun freezes with a sock in his hand.

“I probably shouldn’t…”

He continues getting ready. Though an hour is more than enough to get home, he feels rushed, like he’d better leave Jeno’s bedroom as quickly as possible. Just because.

Instead of making beeline towards the door, he walks across the carpet to the desk, where Jeno’s sitting on his chair, hands resting on his lap. He has this face – he always has this face and Renjun never gets it, he can never read him, and it’s so hard to keep eye contact with him, when Jeno’s sharp eyes could probably stay put on him for an eternity.

Somehow, when he stands next to him, Jeno doesn’t move to hide his drawing. He leaves it on display and looks up for Renjun’s face.

“It’s just school stuff,” he says.

The lamp shines a very yellow, very bright light, both on the desk and on their faces. Renjun looks down.

“Jeno, that’s…”

He stops to look at it from a different angle.

“That’s so…It’s really cool. It makes me feel very warm.”

He’s not sure what else to say. In the fear of sounding silly and completely not artistic, he stays quiet, but he doesn’t raise his eyes from the desk. His pencils and brushes are scattered all around, and there’s a lot of eraser crumbs everywhere, even on Jeno’s lap.

He’s drawn something like a meadow – but it’s not finished, Jeno tells him, it’s going to look better when it’s finished – and there’s a little cow somewhere in the grass. It’s sunny and pretty.

“It’s just for school,” Jeno says again, standing up from his chair. While doing so, he pushes Renjun a step back from the desk, until Renjun gets the hint and starts walking on his own towards the door, Jeno following. “I don’t usually draw that kind of thing on my own.”

They exit the bedroom.

“Really? Then what do you draw on your own, usually?”

Jeno scratches behind his neck.

“I’m not very sure either. Not much.”

They walk across the hallway and enter the kitchen, where the light is on and Donghyuck’s at the table, dressed in pyjamas, talking on the phone. When he sees Renjun, he seems surprised.

“Hold on a second,” he says into the phone. “Hey, I didn’t know you’re here. How have you been?”

Renjun gathers his shoes and coat, then says, “I’m good, yeah. Did you start the book for this week?”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes playfully. “Yeah, but it’s so hard to read.”

He gives a smile in return and lets him go back to talking on the phone. When he’s done getting ready, he throws the bag over his shoulder and sees that Jeno has also put his coat on, though his feet he has a pair of home slippers and the same socks.

As they leave, Renjun waves a hand to Donghyuck, who smiles and mouths a goodbye.

“How much do you want to bet he’s talking to Mark right now?” Jeno asks as they walk down the stairs.

It makes Renjun laugh, because it’s probably true. He’s heard Mark talking on the phone one night, too, when he was smoking in the kitchen and Renjun was busy making the dough for something; he was all smiley and shy.

“They’re cute,” he says, putting his hands in his pockets, bracing himself for the cold that’s waiting outside.

“Donghyuck says they’re just friends.”

“Well, Mark says the same,” Renjun laughs. “They’re just friends, for now. Mark likes to take everything incredibly slow.”

Jeno hums.

When they reach the ground floor, Jeno opens the door for him and they step out in the cold, dark night.

They stand facing each other, letting out breaths that come out in white vapor.

It’s been so cold this week, all the snow’s turned to ice.

“You know what, I just thought of this,” Renjun says. “I don’t think I’m wasting _all_ my time. I mean, I’m making good memories this year, too. I feel stuff. I haven’t felt any type of stuff in a long time.”

Jeno tilts his head. He looks funny with sleeping clothes and his big coat thrown over.

“What kind of stuff do you feel?”

Renjun shrugs.

“Just…you know. Human feelings stuff.” He looks at him. “I’ll remember you for a very long time,” he tells him.

Jeno tilts his head the other way.

“You know I’m not going anywhere for now, right?” His breath turns to vapor. “I don’t think I want to be a memory for you just yet. I’m still here, in the present. And so are you.”

It shuts Renjun up. His stomach and chest tingle; out on the concrete stairs of Jeno’s apartment building, no one can see them. Like they’re alone in the whole world.

“Yeah?” Jeno adds, trying to catch his eyes by following his gaze with his head. He comes, uninvited but welcomed, into Renjun’s field of vision and holds his stare, waiting for an answer.

Renjun nods a few times without a word. He stretches out a trembling hand – he’s getting chilly and nervous – and grasps Jeno’s cold, big one.

“You are a warm thing, Jeno,” he says.

He looks down at their hands intertwined. They fit pretty well. And it feels nice, too.

He lets go of the freezing fingers – Jeno just keeps on looking at him, lips tightly shut – shows a smile instead of a goodbye, grips the strap of his bag and twists around, skipping down the concrete stairs and all the way through the parking lot, hand in pocket. He even hums to himself. His whole body feels light, made out of the world’s sweetest sweet.

He runs down the subway stairs. It smells of dust and it’s warmer underground.

He starts to not mind having so many worries anymore.


	8. warm season - this is not the end

As he munches down on a slice of hot pizza, Jeno worries about a school project he hasn’t even started yet. Finals are coming soon, and his inspiration has sort of left him in with a very bad timing. No matter how much he thinks about it, the last thing he wants to do is pick up a brush and mix his oil paints together.

It’s alright, though, he thinks, because this always happens. Creativity comes back to him whenever it wants to come back.

He tilts his head from side to side as he mulls this over. He should even go buy more supplies, maybe, but does he have enough money?

“I have a problem,” Donghyuck tells him suddenly, from the opposite seat at the table. It snaps Jeno out of it.

“What’s wrong?”

He shifts his attention from his thoughts to the pizza slice, then fully to his roommate, who has a pretty scrunched up look on his face.

“Mark kissed me.”

Jeno gives him a look, longing out every word of his question. “And… how is that a problem?”

Obviously frustrated, Donghyuck throws his own pizza slice on the plate and sighs, but it looks more like the sigh just got stuck in his throat and isn’t able to come out.

“Well, it’s a problem, because I sort of… I kind of pushed him off, said goodbye and left.”

Jeno’s jaw falls slack.

He only closes it back when Donghyuck pulls a face at the sight of food in his mouth.

“You- what? You pushed him _off_?”

Donghyuck sighs again, this time bigger.

“I _know_ , Jeno, but I was so nervous! I was so nervous, I just…” he rubs his face with his hands, “It was overwhelming, why did I do that? I really didn’t want to do that.”

He plops his forehead into his palms, hiding his face.

“What do I do, Jeno, what do I do? They’re _coming over_!”

Jeno stretches his hands out towards him, “No, it’s okay, relax!”

“How is this okay?!”

“No, look, just talk to him when he gets here, yeah?”

The interphone rings.

Donghyuck startles in his seat, “Oh my God!”

Jeno stands up to let them in, then sits back. He sees him taking a big, shaky breath.

“You know, I think I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen,” he says.

“No!” He points a finger at him, just how Donghyuck usually does. “No, don’t do that! Look, I’m going to try take Renjun away from the kitchen so you two can talk, okay?”

“Where are you going to take him?”

Jeno shrugs.

“Does that matter? Somewhere else in the apartment.”

Donghyuck breathes out long, again. “Okay. Okay, thank you.”

Jeno smiles.

“When did he kiss you?”

Donghyuck finishes his last slice – he gets sauce everywhere around his mouth, so Jeno hands him a napkin. The more he looks at him, the sadder he starts to look. Donghyuck doesn’t get sad a lot.

“Last night. He walked me to my yoga studio and right in front of the building he just… yeah. I freaked out.”

“Jesus…You, out of all people, I really thought you would’ve been the one to -”

Donghyuck deadpans him. Jeno stops mid-sentence.

“Was it nice?”

Donghyuck only groans in desperation, hiding his face again.

“Stop making me think about it!”

The doorbell rings.

“Oh my God!”

He stands up to place the empty pizza plates in the sink and wipe his face with the back of his hand while Jeno goes to open the door.

Mark, Renjun and Jeno share a few seconds of greetings, smiles and waves until the two guests are invited inside and left in the hallway to take their sneakers off. Though it’s obviously more tense than other times.

After hanging his jacket in the coat hanger, Renjun steps out of his shoes and hands Jeno a bag.

“It’s carrot cake this time,” he says.

Jeno thanks him and takes it, opening it slightly to see inside. He can’t wait to eat it. He’ll write about it in his notebook, later.

Even if Mark came without any sweater over his t-shirt and he’s already in his socks, he’s not leaving the hallway, instead sticks by Renjun’s side and waits for him to gather his things.

Mark’s the last one to enter the kitchen.

“Hello, hello,” Renjun says when he sees Donghyuck at the table.

Donghyuck forces a soft smile – he’s good at that, Jeno knows, but today he just looks like he’s a bit in pain.

“Hey there.”

He keeps tapping his fingernails on the table and when he looks at Mark, he unnaturally acts surprised.

“Oh, hi!”

Mark stays in the doorframe, showing the same forced soft smile.

It reminds Jeno of the first few times they got together, how they spent the first half an hour not really knowing what to talk about or how to act natural.

But it’s been a long while since that, the stiffness of the winter is gone and all four of them have warmed up.

Only, Mark does not leave the doorframe, nor does Donghyuck get up from his chair. Renjun’s conflicted, standing somewhere between the two, and Jeno’s already pulling at the hem of his shirt.

“Did you guys eat dinner?” he asks Renjun, who barely has time to respond before being pulled slightly in the direction of the hallway connecting the kitchen to the bathroom.

He stumbles over his own legs and tries to hold his ground, but Jeno keeps pulling.

“Yeah, we stopped for burgers on the way here - what are you doing?”

“I need your help on something in there,” Jeno says, pointing in the direction of the hallway.

“Oh, can it wait?”

They’re almost at the door.

“Uh, no, not really.”

Renjun peeks over his shoulder to Mark, who looks alerted, eyes wide and shoulders stiff. He mumbles something, and Jeno lets it pass – Mark _always_ mumbles – but stops when he realizes he was talking to him.

Renjun has to stop as well.

Ah, damn, he’s going to have to ask him to repeat himself.

“What’d you say?”

Mark slightly unglues his back from the wall.

“I asked if you need my help, too. I can help.”

Jeno takes Renjun by the hand and, before completely stepping out of the kitchen, he stutters a, “Oh, uh, no, it’s…I asked Renjun to be my model for my figure drawing class.”

A second before closing the door, he sees Mark’s very puzzled expression and Donghyuck’s face that slowly turns from red to white.

“ _What_ was that?”

Jeno lets go of his hand.

The hallway doesn’t have a direct source of light, but because the sun is still up outside, it peeks through underneath every door on each wall. It’s enough to turn everything into a grey-ish yellow.

“When did you ask me to be your model?”

Renjun’s got this faint pink on his cheeks that turns into a darker shade in time, and Jeno focuses on the pigmentation of his skin until he catches his breath and picks out the words to speak.

Renjun’s looking up at him, eyebrows a little furrowed, big eyes, chin up. Like a little cat.

“No, I didn’t, but let’s just…hang out here for a bit.”

“Mark asked me to not leave him alone with Donghyuck!” Renjun hisses through his teeth, a little agitated.

He’s already walking the few steps back to the door and reaching for the knob, when Jeno grabs him by the first thing that he reaches, that being his waist.

Once again, he pulls him towards him, Renjun stumbles a little but then settles, looking up at him.

He could pick him up, just with his two hands gripping his waist.

He’s really warm, his shirt slightly damp from the heat outside, and it goes through his fingers and into his whole body. When it’s warm outside, their apartment tends to get chilly, so his bare feet always freeze.

“Did he tell you?” Jeno asks.

Renjun raises one shoulder.

“Mark tells me everything.”

“Really?” he raises his eyebrows. “It doesn’t look like it.”

He just hums in response.

“He didn’t even want to come here. He was going to call in sick.”

“Call in sick? Like in school?”

Renjun shrugs.

“Yeah…”

While his eyes fix directly on Renjuns’, Renjun looks almost everywhere except for him. His eyes shake from one thing to another one, and his front teeth seem to have sunk into his bottom lip.

He could kiss him, Jeno thinks, it could be the right moment. Renjun makes him feel brave, and he’s really close to him, they’re alone…

Renjun finally looks up at him.

“So you’re not actually going to draw me, right?” he asks.

“Uh, no. That was just an excuse.”

Renjun nods. Jeno’s hands trail down, touch a little bit more of his waist until they’re gone completely.

He can’t kiss him now.

His mouth might still smell of pizza, and he deliberately put the onion one in the oven… He sighs deeply through his nose.

No, this is not the time.

This always happens – he gets this adrenaline rush when he’s near him, but whenever he’s close to doing something, it dies out.

“So… are you never going to draw me?”

“You?” Jeno gives him a look. Now that his hands are off his waist, he doesn’t know what to do with them, so he swings them lightly around his body. He feels like a mountain of a boy next to Renjun. “I don’t know if I could…”

“Why not?”

There’s finally some muffled talking that can be heard on the other side of the door; Jeno sighs with relief. He hopes Donghyuck and Mark didn’t just spend the last five minutes in complete silence.

“Because…I don’t think I’d be able to draw you as you are. I don’t have the skills yet.”

Renjun furrows his brows, this time deeper. “You drew Donghyuck, though, and it looked just like him.”

Jeno tilts his head.

“Yeah, but…If I were to draw _you_ , I’d want to capture your essence… and I don’t think I can do that yet.”

There’s not much to do in the hallway except for look at each other while talking. It’s a place more shielded from outside noise than the rest of the apartment, but from time to time you can hear doors slamming shut or people stumping down the stairs.

And Mark and Donghyuck, who are now talking, faintly heard from the kitchen.

“Do you capture Donghyuck’s essence when you draw him?” Renjun asks.

He has this large, dark coloured shirt that makes his skin pale and arms look slim.

And from time to time, he wiggles his toes in his socks – it catches Jeno’s attention and he always looks down at them when it happens.

“I don’t really feel the need to capture Donghyuck’s essence fully, it’s just portrait practice,” he explains, “I think I got some of his personality from the expression on his face.”

Renjun reaches forward – it’s a very small distance, anyway – and twirls an index finger around the belt hoop of Jeno’s jeans.

“Then why can’t you do the same with me?” he asks.

He doesn’t pull Jeno closer, nor does he touch him further. He stays like that, wiggling his toes, playing with the hoop enough so that the fabric moves from against his skin, creating a tiny bit of space between his tummy and jeans.

“I’d be sort of scared to draw you,” Jeno admits.

For a second, the index finger stops moving, but then it continues and Renjun puffs a little laugh. His lips form a smile and they both keep quiet for a moment before Jeno speaks up again.

“I’ve been thinking about a thing you told me about…”

“Again? Which thing?”

“The one from a few weeks ago, on my bed,” he says.

“Which _one_?” Renjun laughs.

“When you told me about school and stuff.”

“Oh.”

Jeno clears his throat.

“Well, it takes me a long time to find the proper words so consider this an extension of that conversation.”

Renjun nods, a little wary. “Okay.”

“I just wanted to tell you… I don’t know how much it’ll help you, but I wasn’t accepted into this art school the first time I applied.”

Renjun shakes his head a little, like he doesn’t really understand.

“And, yeah, the first year right after high school I was in this regular, boring college that was really easy to get into so I could have time to redo my portfolio from scratch. I was too scared to take a gap year.”

“Really?”

It feels somewhat comforting to tell someone this story, now that it’s just a memory that doesn’t affect him all that much. He doesn’t have a lot of people he could tell this to, anyway, and when he met Donghyuck in his first year of art school, he was the first person to hear him talk about it.

“Yeah. And when I transferred to this school, I was pretty behind stuff, I always thought everybody else were doing better…Plus, I lost the right to get a scholarship that year, and the supplies are really expensive…”

He stops for a moment.

“That’s not the point. What I wanted to say was that I can sort of relate to where you’re at right now, even if our stories are different, you know? Because I spent a whole year stressing over whether or not I’m good enough to get into the school I wanted and then a whole other semester and a bit to think that I’m not even good enough to be here.”

Renjun hooks another finger around his belt hoop, increasing the strength he’s pulling with – which is not a lot of strength, but it’s still noticeable – and just looks up at him with these very pretty, big eyes. Jeno’s not that scared of eye contact; Renjun certainly seems like he is, so this moment feels a little heavier, a little more special.

“To wrap it up, I just feel like I sort of want to take a little bit of your pain away because I know the type of pressure you put on yourself. Because after you’re out and through that situation you see it completely differently. I wish I hadn’t stressed so much at that time; I was too young to have so many worries.”

In the kitchen, someone raises their voice a little, but it dies down quickly.

Renjun takes the three steps between them and wraps his arms loosely around Jeno, trapping his arms around his body.

He stays like that for a little less than a few seconds, leaving Jeno to wish for more.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says in his shirt, breath damp and warm, before pulling away.

He smiles timidly, and it makes Jeno smile back, just as shy.

“Should we go check on them?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure.”

Getting closer to the door, there’s no noticeable sound coming from the kitchen. Even it there is, it’s too low to be heard over the buzzing of the fridge or the drumming of Jeno’s heart.

And, even if there is any sound, Jeno’s ears usually don’t help in picking it up.

“It’s really silent,” Jeno informs him. He squints his eyes and listens intently, just like Renjun does, but there’s still nothing.

“Maybe they’re kissing!” Renjun suggests.

Jeno hums and cracks the door open just a notch, but he doesn’t see anyone at the table.

“Huh?”

He opens it more, and it’s true. The kitchen is empty.

Him and Renjun step into the room, confused, and look around. Jeno checks the entry hallway, but there’s nothing there, except for shoes and spring jackets.

“Did they leave?”

There’s nowhere else to look around. The apartment is pretty small, and besides the rooms from the hallway, the kitchen is the only one left.

“They must’ve left. But Mark’s stuff is still here. His bag, his phone…” Renjun says, picking up each item on the table. “They probably went on a walk.”

“Yeah, that’s probably – oh, look,” Jeno draws the window curtains for Renjun to see. The view is half of the parking lot and the entirety of the very small playground next to it. Against the ladder of the slide leans Donghyuck, and right in front of him stands Mark.

“Well, they seem alright now,” Renjun says after seeing them. “We could leave them alone. They’ll come back.”

He leaves the window and takes the casserole he’s brought out of the bag. Picking two plates out of the just washed pile of plates himself, he puts a slice for each and stores the rest of the cake in the fridge. Then, he gives one plate to Jeno. “Carrot cake?”


	9. warm season - this is not the end

All Jeno wants to do is get out of the subway as quick as possible.

He does, after a few more minutes of standing in the crowded, noisy place, and gets off at Renjun’s station, rushing past people and walking up the stairs until he’s at ground level.

His headphones stay in as he leaves the dusty, suffocating subway station and walks across the whole alleyway. The trees on each side are fresh with green.

Jeno stops to look at a squirrel, then continues his walk.

Because he had to stuff his bag with a lot of stuff for his studio day today, the strap sinks into his shoulder painfully, sweat going through the fabric of his shirt. The same goes for his drawing tube. Even his feet inside his shoes burn, from too much walking around.

He really, really wishes this alleyway was shorter – just for today, because the rest of the days it’s a nice walk.

When finally reaching Renjun’s small red bricks building covered in ivy, he sighs with relief. Looking back, he knows he’s going to have to walk back on the same alleyway, and get on the same subway, and the trees stay completely still, like not even they would want to move today. He pulls his headphones out.

“Jeno?”

He looks up in the direction of the voice and shields his eyes with his hand, only to find Mark standing in front of his window, smoking a cigarette.

“Oh, hey!”

Mark says something back, but it’s too quiet. Jeno exhales long through his nose, clenching his jaw for a second.

“What’d you say?”

Mark leans further out of the window, leaving his cigarette to burn between two fingers.

“I asked which wind blew you here!”

Jeno scoffs a laugh, still looking up. His neck starts to hurt a little.

“Oh! Renjun called me and asked if I wanted some cheesecake!”

Mark looks back inside the apartment.

“Yeah? Then come to the interphone and I’ll buzz you in!”

“Oh, no, I won’t come up! I have to be home soon! I’ll wait for him here!” he says.

Mark says something that might’ve been a word of understanding, then disappears from the window completely.

Jeno plops down on the concrete stairs and cracks his back a few times with a long sigh. He leaves his bag and drawing tube next to him, feeling the pressure being taken off and stretches his legs out long. Most of his body hurts, and if it weren’t for the heat, he would’ve ended up resting his head against the wall and taking a nap.

He decides to take off his jacket – the weather is too warm for this time of year – and throw it over his bag.

“Mark?” he asks, blindly looking at the tip of his shoes, raising his voice.

“Yeah?” comes the response after a while from above him.

Though he can’t see him, Jeno still speaks.

“Could Renjun bring me a glass of water when he comes here, too, please?”

It seems like Mark mumbles something into the apartment.

“Coming, coming!”

That’s Renjun speaking, Jeno realizes, and while he unfocusedly wipes the bit of dirt off his shoes, he smiles.

After a few more moments, there’s some noise from behind him.

Jeno startles, then twists in his seat, and when he sees Renjun struggling to open the door, pushing his body weight onto it, he jumps to his feet to pull it for him.

“Hey,” Renjun greets. His both hands are full, one with a glass of water and one with a plastic bag.

“Hi.”

Jeno feels himself smiling.

“This is for you,” he stretches both his hands – Jeno takes the water, gulps it down, which leaves him gasping – then says, “You could’ve come up.”

Jeno thanks him for the water, handing him the empty glass back, and takes the bag with the cheesecake.

“I know, but I’ve got all this school work that I need to get done today.”

“Oh, I see. How’s studying for art history going?”

Beads of sweat are formed along his hairline, and the hair on his neck stands up, wet. Even his cheeks are crimson, which makes him look cute – but this isn’t something new, Renjun’s always blushing. Before Jeno can say something, Renjun explains that it gets really hot with the oven on upstairs.

He brushes his sweat off his forehead and looks up at Jeno.

“Art history’s the one I’m the worst at so far,” Jeno says.

Renjun clicks his tongues, pouting his lips a little.

“And I woke up at six today, thinking I could get some chapters done before school, but that really didn’t work out, because then I remembered I had a project for Illustration that I forgot to finish. So I spent all my morning on that.”

Renjun tsks again, this time stretching the empty hand out to pat Jeno’s arm a bit.

“Did you finish that essay, though?” he asks.

“Yeah, at least I got that out of the way.”

“That’s good.”

He pats his arm some more.

Renjun’s voice has always been really nice, really mellow when he speaks.

Jeno takes a big breath of warm air.

“Anyway, I should get going,” he says, and Renjun nods. “Thanks so much for this, I’ll eat it before Donghyuck gets back.”

Renjun laughs.

“No, leave some for him, too. There’s plenty for both.”

As Jeno bends down to pick up his jacket and bags off the stairs, he puffs an “Okay, I will.”

Then he looks at Renjun, who’s gripping the glass and smiling at him, cheeks round and lips stretched.

Oh, he’s so small and cute, Jeno wants to ask him to come with him all the way across the alleyway and to the subway, but he doesn’t. He needs to leave, and there’s a pile of textbooks and drawings at home that waits for him.

The plastic bag weighs him down even more.

“Bye, Renjun!” he says.

Renjun gives him a tiny wave and a smile and pulls his key card out to disappear back into the building.

As he walks down the concrete stairs and enters the alleyway, Jeno checks to see if he has everything on him. His bag, his jacket, which now makes his bag even heavier, his drawing tube, the cheesecake in the plastic bag.

He nods for himself and continues walking, looking at the long road ahead until the station. There’re no more squirrels in the trees this time.

Out of curiosity, he opens the plastic bag to see how the cake looks. He finds an opaque plastic casserole, and on top of it, a sticky note.

He stops to unglue it and take it out.

_Good luck on your exams! You got this!_

The handwriting is small and clean, and above it there’s a quick drawing of a smiley face wearing a weird, big hat, which Jeno recognises after a few confused, good looks as to be his own knitted winter hat.

He smiles again, and skips happily his whole way across the alleyway with the green trees until he reaches the subway station.


	10. warm season - this is not the end

“Sometimes I think there’s something seriously wrong with me,” Renjun tells him.

It’s not really that he tells _him_ , it’s more like he speaks it into the wind, because as they sit on the swings in the little playground next to Jeno’s building, Renjun barely looks at him. His eyes are stuck on one randomly chosen thing in the far distance.

Jeno starts swinging, gripping the metal chains with his hands. The night is warm enough for shorts and a short sleeved shirt, but soon a hoodie would be more than helpful.

“I think so, too.”

Renjun so suddenly whips his head to look at him, it makes Jeno laugh.

“You think there’s something wrong with me?” he asks, leaning in on the side, just a bit.

Jeno stretches his legs when he’s up in the air and bends them on the way back. The metals clashing makes a squeaky, irritating noise, but besides some cars being parked in the parkin lot, it’s mostly the only sound.

“No, I think there’s something _seriously_ wrong with you,” Jeno presses with a smile, suddenly changing his mind and stepping on the sand underneath him to try stop the swing from moving. After all, it’s getting late, and Renjun needs to catch the subway back. The only reason they’re out of the apartment is because Donghyuck kicked them out when Jeno started smoking. “But I also think that’s the most normal thing in this world. Everybody has that.”

Renjun lets out an “Oh”.

As he finally stops, Jeno pulls out his pack of cigarettes and his plastic lighter. He hands one cigarette to Renjun, who takes a few moments and head tilts to decline it, then puts it between his lips and lights it. When he inhales, it’s the only thing he can smell. It goes into his lungs and out, and he closes his eyes to really feel it.

“You know, you think cigarettes are the ones that calm you down, but it’s actually because you breathe deeply and correctly when you smoke,” Renjun says. He’s now leaned in even more, and Jeno twists on his seat to perpendicularly, one leg on each side of the chain. “That could be your _wrong thing_. Smoking.”

Jeno smiles and taps off the ash on the sand.

“Donghyuck told me the exact same thing the day I moved in with him.”

Renjun puffs.

“But no, I don’t think that’s my seriously wrong thing.”

Renjun spins so that he’s sitting just like Jeno, facing him.

“Then what is?”

Jeno looks around, thinking. The sky’s a deep blue, but not the darkest shade yet. There’s still time for that. The slide and the benches – the only components of the playground besides the swings – are empty, and so is the parking lot. Though there are a lot of cars, no person seems to come out. It’s just them.

“I can’t really hear that well with my left ear,” Jeno tells him. “That’s probably my thing.”

Renjun furrows his brows. “That’s not a wrong thing at all…”

“Well, it sort of -” he pauses to breathe out smoke, “- it sort of is. It’s a nuisance. I’m not deaf in it, I’m just… a little bit _off_.”

Keeping the tip of his shoes buried in the cold sand, Renjun swings lightly front and back, the opposite way of how the swings should go.

“It’s not like you can control it. And I think it gives you character.”

Jeno smiles, because that’s a sweet thing to hear, but it still doesn’t make it less annoying. His ear is his biggest enemy.

“What’s your thing?” he asks.

“My seriously wrong thing? I’m really a coward sometimes.”

Jeno hums. “You might just be…”

Renjun looks like a balloon who just got all the air sucked out of him. His shoulders slump down and his eyes droop a tiny bit, like a child who’s considering bursting into tears. Jeno wants to take the few steps between their swing seats and kiss his nose; he didn’t finish his sentence, he just took a break to puff out smoke.

“I am?”

“But even if you are a coward, that’s not all that you are.”

As the wind very lightly blows, it pushes some strands of hair off of Renjun’s forehead. It’s a very still, warm night.

“You can be brave and a coward at the same time,” he continues. Renjun just looks at him. Jeno stumps the cigarette stud against the chain and throws it somewhere on the sand, jumping off the seat. “And you are.”

Renjun stays quiet, but does the same and leaves the swings.

“We should go back. The subway’s going to be out soon.”

“Yeah,” he nods. He follows Jeno across the very small playground, and picks up Jeno’s stud off the sand. throwing it in the closest garbage can.

The sand crumbles under their shoes until they’re walking on concrete again.

“You’ll give me the recipe for the marzipan biscuits next time we meet, yeah?” he asks, looking back at him.

He’s a hypocrite, he realizes. He’s told Renjun not to think about what’s to come, yet he keeps all these notes, recipes and drawings in his notebook like they’re receipts he’ll look at later to prove that Renjun’s existence in his life was actually, truly real.

He’ll never bake marzipan biscuits. He doesn’t even know how to properly turn on Donghyuck’s oven. Nor will he bake a tiramisu or rose water cakes.

Renjun catches up with him and nods.

The walk up the stairs is silent, not because they don’t have anything to say, but because Renjun’s been sort of silent since they left the apartment for Jeno’s cigarette break and he feels like there’s something cooking inside Renjun’s mind right now. As in, actually cooking. It looks like he’s mixing the ingredients for some thought right now, his mind somewhere else, and Jeno lets the silence cover them as they climb the stairs.

Inside the apartment building it’s so much chillier from all the concrete, and it’s a blessing when they reach the door and step inside.

“I’m just going to take my stuff quickly and leave,” Renjun says, stopping in the hallway to take his shoes off.

Jeno stops him, “No, don’t bother taking them off. I’ll get your bag and book for you.”

When they walk into the kitchen, Jeno now with house slippers on, they find Donghyuck on the same chair as they left him, typing away on his computer. He doesn’t even raise his eyes from his screen.

“Hey, welcome back.”

Renjun takes a seat at the same table.

“Hey. I’m going to leave in a bit.”

He nods in response. As Jeno walks past him, he speaks into the laptop screen, “Did you enjoy your future lung problem?”

Jeno nods as he leaves the kitchen. “Yeah, it was great.”

Renjun seemed strangely quiet when he left him, and just as strange when Jeno returns with his bag from his bedroom.

“You changed your pants,” Renjun notices from his chair.

“Yeah, these are my thinking pants,” Jeno says, looking down at the checkered fabric. “I’m going to start working on an assignment in a bit.”

Renjun smiles at that, though it’s a smile on only half of his face and his eyes are once again fixes on something picked at random, probably zoning out.

Jeno pats his shoulder and hands him his bag, from which Renjun gets his jacket and puts it on, then stands up.

“Are you tired?” Jeno asks him.

“No, I’m just…”

Jeno doesn’t get to hear the end of the sentence, because Renjun steps into the hallway. Jeno sighs and follows him there, closing the door after he says his goodbyes to Donghyuck.

In the hallway, the only source of light comes from the beneath the kitchen door, where the light is turned on.

Jeno steps out of his house slippers and goes to put his shoes on again, but Renjun holds up a hand to stop him.

“You don’t have to walk me downstairs, I’m okay.”

Jeno furrows his brows. “You sure? I don’t mind.”

Renjun takes a deep breath though his mouth, and Jeno shakes his head a little, furrowing his eyebrows further.

“I don’t want to feel like a coward all the time,” Renjun whispers to him.

Taken aback by the change of tone, Jeno unconsciously takes a step forward, like he’s ready to be told a secret, leaning downwards. He fixes his eyes on him, waiting for him to continue.

“So I want to try something a little brave,” he whispers again, holding his gaze strongly, so unlike him.

Jeno doesn’t get it, he really doesn’t, until Renjun’s shaky hands come up on each side of his face, one on each cheek – _then_ Jeno gets it. It takes Renjun a couple more seconds to take a few more jerky, short breaths until he settles in place and, with a determined look, leans in just a bit to lightly touch their lips together.

Even if Jeno knew what was going to happen – he had a few seconds to prepare – and his fall shut sometime along the way, he still startles when their lips met, when he feels the sensation of something warm against his sensitive skin. It sends a shiver though him, and Renjun’s hands tremble on his cheeks, he feels them.

Their touch of lips doesn’t turn into a proper kiss just yet; Renjun breaks away so slowly, Jeno follows his lips blindly, then comes back to plant another small kiss on Jeno’s lips, and he does that a few times until Jeno’s brain starts sending signals again and he moulds his lips around his. One hand comes up to his waist, and Jeno doesn’t have to crouch his neck anymore when Renjun stands on the tip of his toes.

It’s butterfly kiss after butterfly kiss, Renjun hesitantly planting many on his lips, each time leaving with a small smack sound of mouths together.

As Jeno starts to warm up, his other hand also comes to rest on his waist and he just holds him like that, his smile growing uncontrollably bigger until Renjun almost kisses his teeth instead of his lips.

“What?” Renjun asks, voice above a whisper, as he pulls away.

He looks really small and a bit fearful, but Jeno’s so surprised this is actually happening, he can’t take this smile off his face.

“Nothing,” he says, leaning back in for one last kiss. “This feels really nice…”

Full of his own sudden nervousness, Jeno pulls away and takes his hands off his waist in just a few moments.

Even looking at Renjun feels different now.

“Okay, I’ll go now,” Renjun says, steadying his bag strap on his shoulder and pressing his lips in a very tight line.

“Okay, bye,” is all Jeno manages to stutter out, opening the front door for him. Renjun quickly leaves, and Jeno doesn’t have it in him to look at him, so he closes back the door of the apartment and stays like that, in the hallway with his hand on the handle for the next few minutes.

Then, he locks the door and bites his lip so hard, it almost draws blood, and jumps from one foot to the other. There’s so much emotion in him right now, he doesn’t know what to do with it.

He jumps around in the hallway for a bit before finally going back into the kitchen.

Donghyuck still at his laptop, sighing and rubbing his eyes.

Jeno walks behind his chair and wraps his arms around his neck and shoulders, swinging from left to right, scaring him with the hug.

“Wha- what’s gotten into you?” Donghyuck asks.

Jeno shrugs and goes to open the window, biting on his lips.


	11. warm season - this is not the end

Somebody’s feeding his forever hungered stomach. Somebody is feeding him, and it’s Renjun, to top it all off.

He was right. Food’s so much more than just food.

“Where should I put this?” Donghyuck asks, holding the wine bottle.

“Anywhere on the table,” Renjun replies with his head half in the oven, checking the pizzas. “But leave space for the pizzas, I’m going to take them out.”

After finding a little bit of room for the bottle, Donghyuck moves around Renjun’s kitchen table to put plates and cutlery for everyone, while Jeno was assigned to folding the napkins. That being his only task, he decides to fold them into origami hearts, just so he has something to do.

Everyone’s standing up, walking around, except for Mark, who sits down on the little sofa. He got a pass from setting the table as he’s had a hard day and he’s tired.

With the oven gloves, Renjun takes out the pizzas out of the oven and leaves them to cool down on the dining table, on top of the table cloth. He said frozen pizzas aren’t good for their health, so he made them from scratch this afternoon.

“It smells so good,” Jeno notes, finishing his fourth and last origami napkin heart and sitting down next to mark on the sofa.

Renjun looks up and gives him a small smile, enough to be seen just by him. Jeno smiles back.

Donghyuck opens the window. “It gets so hot with the oven on, dang.”

The street underneath them is filled with a peaceful silence that’s only due to the stillness of the very warm air. Nothing’s moving, not even the tree branches, as green and refreshing as they are. Though it’s a blessing there are so many trees on Renjun and Mark’s street. Everything wants to sit under the cool shadows these day.

“Okay, I think it’s done!” Renjun says, bringing a tomato sauce bottle – he made that as well – and finally scraping a chair from under the table, sitting down with a little sigh. Donghyuck does the same. “Be careful, that’s hot,” he says when Mark goes to cut the pizza.

Mark keeps eyeing the wine bottle as they eat.

“Mhm! Glasses, we forgot glasses,” Donghyuck remembers, wiping his mouth quickly with one of the napkins and leaving his pizza slice on the plate, standing up.

Mark does the same.

“No, Hyuck, let me,” he says, squeezing between the table and sofa to walk towards the cupboards.

“No, let _me_ \- ”

Mark walks past him and plants a playful kiss on his temple, pushing him back on his chair by the shoulder. It works, Jeno sees, because Donghyuck shuts his mouth and continues eating, now with a faint shade of red on his face.

Mark comes back with two tall glasses in each hand and Renjun helps him pour the drink.

“I really needed this,” Mark says, plopping down in his seat.

“Didn’t it get sort of warm, though?” Donghyuck touches his glass, checking.

“Wow, I haven’t had wine in so long.”

Renjun takes a sip, then pulls a face. He leaves his wine on the table and continues eating.

Jeno has to admit, the pizza Renjun makes is so much better than the frozen type. It’s so good, he starts feeling emotional, even if the wine is slightly warm.

He hasn’t had this good of a full meal in a long time.

And he’s done with school for the year, too, and he’s finally not stressed about anything. He can just eat and look out the window and enjoy the warmth and lack of movement of the afternoon.

Oh, the drink starts making his brain and limbs feel mushy and heavy.

He has this dumb smile spread on his face as they eat and he starts swinging from left to right slightly. Then he looks at Renjun, who’s munching down on his slice, and his whole chest swells with something, like there were a lot of flowers inside of him and they all just bloomed, simultaneously, making the air that he breathes in and out feel like smelling a rose.

Renjun catches his eyes and gives him another small smile.

“Is it good?” he asks him from across the table.

Jeno nods, more than necessary. “Very.”

He just keeps nodding and taking sips of his wine.

“I think we’ve got our first tipsy person,” Donghyuck laughs, pointing at him. He checks the time. “How long did it take him? Around ten minutes?”

Jeno tries hiding his face, laughing, and lets his whole body melt against Mark’s shoulder. He feels Mark laughing through his shoulder repeatedly shaking, and he just closes his eyes for a moment.

“You guys are great,” he says. “This was a great meal.”

Donghyuck makes a choking sound in his glass.

“Do you know what day it is today?” Renjun asks, making Jeno open his eyes again. He watches him like that, warm and happy and fuzzy. He feels the need to stretch over the table and kiss him for a long time, but he realizes he shouldn’t. He feels just as nervous about their second kiss as he felt with their first one. But at least now he can look as much as he wants, and Renjun doesn’t seem to shy away that much. And it’s a bonus that he knows how Renjun’s lips feel on his own.

When he looks around at the table, he sees that no one else besides him has finished their glass of wine.

“The day we were supposed to have a book meeting but no one read the book?” Donghyuck tries.

Renjun laughs. “No. I mean, yes, it is, but that’s not what I was talking about.”

“It’s not your birthday, is it?” Jeno asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Oh, wait, is it your mom’s birthday?” Mark points a finger at him.

Renjun shakes his head with a smile. “Okay, no, you won’t guess it.” He goes to try another sip of his drink, this time with a little less of a grimace. “I would’ve graduated today.”

Mark puts his arms on the table, leaning in. “Really?”

He tilts his head.

“Yeah. I would’ve had the cap and my parents would’ve brought me flowers and all that.”

“Huh.”

“So you took the gap year before your last year?” Donghyuck asks.

Renjun nods.

“Sort of weird, isn’t it? But I just couldn’t bear another year there.”

He tries another sip, while Jeno’s already going for a refill.

“Also…” Renjun says. “I found this thing… And I signed up for it. A baking course. A legit one.”

Jeno almost spills his wine. “Oh, my! Really?”

There’s a small smile tugging at the corner of Renjun’s lips. “Yeah, really. It starts in July.”

“Wow,” Mark says, slowly nodding. “Wow, that’s so great, Renjun…”

“And are you going back to finish college in October, then?” Donghyuck asks.

Renjun shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know yet.”

The birds chirp outside.

“To Renjun!” Mark says, raising his glass.

“To Renjun!” they all follow, making him shy away and laugh.

“And to Mark, who just got his new job that finally pays him well even if it’s tiring!” Renjun says, raising his own glass.

“To Mark!”

“And to Donghyuck and his newly gotten yoga instructor certificate!”

“To Donghyuck!”

“And to Jeno who…who’s pretty cool, I’d say.”

“To Jeno?”

Jeno sticks his tongue out at him, just a little, making Renjun laugh.

“I’m joking, okay, to Jeno, who not only is pretty cool, but he might get his illustrations published in a book!”

“To Jeno!”

Jeno smiles, and when everybody’s done and Mark and Donghyuck get up to wash the dishes, he pulls Renjun’s chair, extracting a gasp from him, until it’s close enough to rest his forehead on his shoulder.

Renjun’s hand comes up to pet his head.

“I’m so happy you’re doing this,” Jeno says in his shirt, mumbled. “I’m so proud.”

He hears Renjun smile through his hum,

“You’re not doing so bad yourself, huh.” Then, as Jeno feels a hand on his forehead, concerned, “You’re not drunk, are you? You’re burning up.”

Behind them, Mark and Donghyuck are bickering over who should wash what. The tap water is running.

Jeno shakes his head and twists enough so he can look at him but still lean on his shoulder, weighing it down.

“I’m not drunk. Just tipsy.”

Renjun smiles, amused.

Jeno takes him in, the whole sight of his warm eyes, his small nose and the pink dusted cheeks. He brushes some hairs off his forehead just so he has a reason to touch him, to let the tips of his fingers wander around.

He should kiss him, he thinks.

Renjun smiles again, like he can hear his thoughts. Jeno sometimes thinks he really can.

He wants to kiss him and hold him close. From the look on Renjun’s face, it seems like he starts to understand his intentions, because he turns all serious and glances down at Jeno’s lips.

He feels tiny beads of sweat trail down his back, even with the open window. It’s so warm in here, Renjun’s so close, he can’t even think…

He starts leaning in, and so does Renjun.

“Hey, where did we put the rest of the dish soap?” Mark asks from the sink.

It startles both of them, so hard that when Jeno flinches, he hits Renjun’s nose with his forehead. In a second, they separate, Jeno quick to glue his back against the back rest of the sofa.

“Sorry,” he mutters, looking away and feeling a wave of embarrassment wash over him as Renjun stands up with a hand holding his aching nose and walks over to the two of them.

“It’s not in the cupboard? That’s where we keep it, right?”

Jeno sighs, taking another sip of warm, warm wine. He should have kissed him quicker!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my apologies for being so late with this one!   
> there's only 2 chapters to go, what do you think...?  
> my little baby will be over soon, but don't be sad, i have some new stuff coming as well... i won't tell you now, it's a secret!  
> are you enjoying this?


	12. warm season - this is not the end

It’s the first time Jeno gets to see how incredibly beautiful and warm the light coming through Renjun’s kitchen blinds is early in the morning, before the heat can settle in.

He makes the bed – which means holding the sheets Renjun has laid down on the sofa for him and putting them under the pillow – and takes the home slippers in his feet, shuffling them against the tiles until he’s at the window. He opens it fully, breathing in the somewhat chilly morning air with a happy smile.

Then, he hangs out of the window, bending his half upper body and letting his arms just hang there, swinging them until blood rushes to his head and makes him dizzy.

It’s so interesting to wake up in someone else’s kitchen. He keeps on smiling.

The light is so good.

He shuffles further into the hallway, where he stops to knock on Renjun’s bedroom door. The hallway is dark but sunlight manages to creep through, from underneath the doors.

He doesn’t wait for Renjun to answer before he creaks it open, slowly, and when he’s met with the image of Renjun, bed hair, big shirt, rubbing his eyes while half sitting up, he opens it fully and his smile turns into a shy one as he steps into the room.

Renjun’s sitting on the bed, feet still under the covers and when Jeno walks in, he turns around and meets him with the same timidity on his face.

“Morning,” he mutters to Jeno, still rubbing his eyes. His hair sticks up everywhere. He takes his fingers from his eyes and lets them fall on his lap.

Jeno smiles from the doorframe.

The light here is a little softer.

“Do you…perhaps know…” Jeno starts, turning his head from left to right, “how to make a lemon meringue pie?”

Renjun blinks a few times and shifts so he’s fully facing Jeno. The sheets shift with him.

“A what?”

“A _lemon meringue pie_ ,” Jeno repeats.

It seems like it takes Renjun a few more seconds to fully understand, but when he does, he slides off the bed sleepily and lands exactly on his home slippers. When he’s out of the bed, he stretches a few times and opens the window.

He’s wearing a shirt as white as the sheets he’s just gotten out of, and it covers his arms up to his elbows.

At the window, he does the same thing Jeno has done in the kitchen.

“You know you need to make the crust from scratch, right? And that alone takes about an hour and a half.”

Jeno watches him spin back around and walk up to him across the carpet.

“We don’t have anything to do today, though,” he concludes. “Do you want to help me make it?”

Jeno nods happily. It makes Renjun smile.

“My shirt looks nice on you,” he says and he tries to walk past him by the door.

“It smells of you,” comes Jeno’s reply, a little huskier, and he blocks the way out by stretching out a hand.

Renjun can’t do anything but stay put and stare up at him.

Jeno leans in – he feels so pulled to him, so mesmerised by his presence, he doesn’t want to not breathe right in his face – and he leans and leans, until he’s stretched his neck downwards enough to be on almost eye level to Renjun.

In a quick second, he just lightly brushes his lips on his, letting his eyes fall shut, and in an even quicker second, Renjun puts a hand on his chest – warm and somewhat sweaty – and pushes him off.

“I didn’t brush my teeth yet,” he laughs and escapes, walking past him and going into the bathroom.

Jeno grumbles something but complies, and when Renjun’s out he goes in himself, leaving the door open as he uses mouthwash instead of toothpaste and a toothbrush so they can talk.

“Do you like lemon pies a lot?” Renjun asks him, waiting for him to finish.

Jeno spits out the mouthwash in the sink.

“Yeah, it’s – can I use your deodorant?” Renjun lets him, so he sprays some under his shirt. Now he smells even more like him. “I woke up craving it. Is it hard to make?”

Renjun tilts his head, letting his shoulder lean against the wall. “It’s not extremely hard, but it takes a lot of time. But while the crust is baking in the oven we can make the filling and the topping.”

Jeno gives him a little guilty puff of a laugh. “Just so you know, I’m _really_ bad at baking.”

He finishes and wipes his mouth one of Renjun’s towels, then turns off the light and they both go back to the kitchen.

“That’s okay. I’m good at it.”

Jeno smiles and sits down at the table while Renjun opens the fridge and scans it quickly. A wave of cold air reaches him.

“What’s your opinion on poached eggs?” Renjun asks, head in the fridge.

“They sound fancy.”

Renjun snorts and takes out a carton of eggs. He puts it on the counter and in a few minutes, Jeno finds himself eating eggs for breakfast across from Renjun. It’s strangely intimate and comforting at the same time and for a few minutes Jeno’s at a loss of words.

He can’t help but smile down at him plate and keep his eyes on the orange yolk that keeps coming out as he cuts the egg with his fork.

When they’re done, Jeno offers to wash the dishes. “Where’s Mark?” he asks.

Renjun twists in his seat and gives him a look. “At _your_ place.”

“Oh? Oh.”

He tilts his head.

“Hah.”

A second later, he smiles. “So we’re alone?”

“Yeah.”

Jeno turns off the tap and makes an exaggerated thinking noise as he spins back around. “Hmm…That’s interesting…”

That makes Renjun laugh and slap his arm lightly. Then, he opens up the fridge again, extracting milk and butter.

“I might have to get my recipe notebook for this one,” Renjun says, thinking. “I don’t remember a lot.”

Even with Renjun’s recipe book, an old notebook that’s falling apart and stained with flour and dried dough, Jeno still finds the process difficult. Even if he’s not involved in it at all. He’s just watching.

And as he watches, he deliberately keeps his eyes fixed on Renjun’s profile, not letting it go for even a second, just to see when Renjun will look up at him. He doesn’t. Jeno is used to it by now. It’s a small victory when he notices Renjun’s eyes flickering very quickly in his direction and then continuing to mix to warm butter with the sugar. He smiles for himself.

Watching Renjun bake in his strawberry patterned apron is as interesting as watching someone in his classes draw from start to finish. It’s calming, and the air in the kitchen smells like summer and heat and warm milk and the deodorant they’ve both used.

Oh, he wants to cup his cheeks and kiss his forehead.

“Hold this for me, please,” Renjun says, giving him the bag of flower.

Jeno takes it, snapped out of his thoughts.

“What’s one song you’ve been liking recently?” Jeno asks, waiting for more instructions as to what to do with the flower bag.

Renjun asks for him to come and pour more flour in his mixture – which Jeno does, very carefully in the fear or pouring too much – then says, “Hmm…It’s the-,” he starts humming it, “do you know it?”

He hums some more, taking the dough which has formed into a big, hard ball, onto the counter where Jeno had to sprinkle some flour on.

“I don’t know a lot of the lyrics but it’s the…it’s this one,” he hums even more, and it clicks in Jeno’s mind and he hums it with him. “Yeah, that one.”

Renjun takes a paddle to thin out the dough. Jeno watches.

He can’t pin point exactly when and where he started liking him. It just sort of happened, naturally, without him even noticing it, and it’s never happened like this before. He just grew fond of him.

No, he knew something was blooming in him the minute Donghyuck came home with that tiramisu, sent from a complete stranger who he’s only spent five minutes with in the hallway.

Something might’ve been blooming even the moment he got up from his chair, left his frustratingly bad drawing he was working on and answered the door. And after hours of sighing and pulling at his hair quietly in his bedroom – not even his special thinking pants helped that day – he opened the door to find this small, elegant looking boy who spoke so quietly, it made Jeno think _What are you doing here? Who sent you for me?_

It just happened.

He talked to Donghyuck about it once. He said he knew exactly when he started looking at Mark differently; but he’s been looking at Renjun in the same way since he’s met him.

“Okay,” Renjun says and it snaps him out of his thoughts again. He wipes his forehead. “What do you think? I just have to put it in the tray and then it’s ready to bake for a few minutes.”

Jeno walks over and stays behind him. “Oh, no, it’s really pretty,” he says. Then, he puts a hand on his shoulder and massages it a bit. He feels how much warmth he emanates. “You’re like my little Ratatouille.”

In a minute, the tray is in the oven, the timer set for exactly seven minutes on high heat.

“It doesn’t have to bake for too long, just so it can hold up all the fillings,” he explains. He rests with his lower back against the counter, right next to the oven, and yawns, covering his mouth.

He wipes the flour off his hands on his strawberry apron and puts them behind him, on the counter.

From the running oven, the air gets hotter.

Jeno walks over and settles in front of him. Right in front of him. It’s not necessary to stay so close to him and talk right in his face – it never is – but Jeno likes it. He always checks beforehand, and today he smells like mouthwash, so he can. He gets a confidence boost and shimmies even closer, until their home slippers meet.

Renjun smiles at him. Just for him, an upward turn of lips, and it’s good. It’s good, everything’s good right now, Jeno feels so good.

The early morning starts to fade away, becoming replaced by the awakening of the rest of the world.

“You’re like a big bear,” Renjun says to him and raises one hand to fix some of Jeno’s hairs. He lets him, just to feel his touch. “A big, big bear,” he continues mindlessly.

The other hand comes up in his hair, and after a moment of confusion, Jeno feels that Renjun’s braiding three short hairs of his.

He does feel like a bear, Jeno thinks, most of the time. It makes his heart swell; he wants to be big and warm for Renjun, to be big and strong.

And Renjun looks so soft now. His hands finish the little braid and move around in his hair some more, they leave a trail of flour, until they fall on his neck, resting there.

Jeno breathes out long through his nose and grabs his waist gently, pushing him into the counter until there’s nowhere else to go, until there’s no more space between them. He presses his body against his, and when he hears the faint shaky sigh from Renjun, oh, he has to close his eyes for a moment.

He doesn’t know where to kiss first – his forehead, his nose, temple, lips? – but before he even gets to lean in, Renjun speaks.

“I’m a bit clumsy at this,” he says. His voice is low, like he’s confessing, and his expression is hard to read. It’s like he’s trying to give a warning to Jeno beforehand.

“That’s alright,” Jeno adapts to his whisper.

“I haven’t done a lot of things,” Renjun continues, this time a little bit fearful, wary, and his words carry a little bit more meaning.

“Well, me neither.”

He looks up at him with those eyes, ah, Jeno doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“We don’t have to do _a lot of things_ ,” Jeno continues, referring to whatever those things Renjun is speaking about, “For now, I just want to kiss you,” he speaks it almost already on his lips, “is that okay?”

He doesn’t see Renjun nod, he feels it when he brushes against his lips. Their noses brush. The grip on his waist tightens.

Renjun parts his lips slightly and Jeno barely presses on them, he just hovers there; he wants to savour it. He hums against his mouth and starts so slowly, it feels like time has stopped. He doesn’t even kiss him, it’s just a touch of lips for now. He hears his own heartbeat in his ears.

He wants to savour him.

Renjun’s stretching his neck, blindly looking for him.

The first kiss Jeno plants, as a warm-up, just to see if it feels the same as last time, is a small one on the corner of his lips. The next one is less than an inch further, on his bottom lip. He bites there a little, just to hear a whimper.

He turns to pudding. There’s nothing better than this.

The oven timer goes off, suddenly and loudly, making Jeno pull away so fast it scratches Renjun’s lip. It makes both of them startle, and Jeno cannot believe this has happened again. Renjun pushes him off a bit to squat down in front of the oven and turn it off, then take a glove and take the tray out.

“Well, uhm, the crust is done. Should we start making the cream now?”

Jeno doesn’t have anything else to do than nod.

“Okay, uhm, take the lemons out from the fridge, please.”

Jeno does, but he doesn’t miss the smile Renjun tries to hold in. It makes him feel less tense, and while having his head buried into the fridge, looking for the lemons, he can’t help but take a long, long breath out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! he he, isnt the mood nice?  
> thank you for leaving kind comments on my story, it means the world.  
> it's nearly over! what do you think?  
> i will be taking a little more than 2 days to post the last chapter, as that means i'm done with this story and that just makes me sad :( also, it's a bit hard for me to write every day, and i want to make it extra nice and not rush anything.  
> i have a lot of thoughts to share, but maybe i'll leave them for the next notes section... :)


	13. warm season - this is not the end

“What’s that?” Renjun asks.

“My oil paints,” Jeno says, taking out the box they’re referring to and handing it to Renjun to look through it, like a curious child in a store.

“And what’s that?” he points at another box.

“My acrylic paints.”

The box gets handed to Renjun and he pulls some of the paint tubes out, inspecting them with much curiosity.

“And what’s the difference?” but before Jeno can reply, his eye catches a little something hidden between the multitude of boxes, tubes, scraps of papers and brushes, and he takes it in his hand with a little gasp, “Woah, what’s this?”

Jeno, from where he stands with his lower back against the desk, looks down and smiles; it’s not big enough to be visible, but he feels every component of his insides smiling.

“That’s a kneaded eraser.”

“An eraser? It looks so weird.”

Renjun turns the little piece around, kneads it between his fingertips and looks up at him. “Why’s it so sticky, though?”

Jeno shrugs one shoulder. “It’s old,” he explains. “And I play with it whenever I’m drawing without realising.”

“Is it better than a regular eraser? Because this,” he holds it up, “doesn’t really look like it can erase much.”

Jeno, remembering something else, unglues his back from the desk, leaves Renjun to sit there on his chair and walks over to his dresser. He opens the wooden doors and starts rummaging for something.

“Well, it’s a,” he can hear Renjun rummaging through his stuff as well, opening drawers and shuffling pencils, “it’s used for shading. It doesn’t erase fully like a regular one does but,” he pulls something from under a stack of clothes, making them fall on his carpet in a pile, “but you don’t always want that, so…”

He leaves the sentence unfinished but Renjun still hums in acknowledgement. As he bends down to quickly pick up the previously folded clothes and throw them carelessly back in the dresser, Renjun asks from the desk, “Are these your sketchbooks? Can I look through one?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Jeno replies, pressing his weight against the doors so they’ll close before the clothes might fall out again.

Renjun stands up from the desk and throws himself – lightly, but enough so the mattress creaks – on the bed, on his belly, and flips through the notebook he’s picked.

Jeno glances at his desk. It’s a bigger mess than it usually is, so much so that now there’s no room for anything else there and the wood underneath can’t even be seen. Renjun has been very intrigued this evening.

He lets Renjun have a few more moments with the sketchbook while he waits by the dresser, hands behind his back. It’s somewhat of an anxiety exercise for him, as he has to witness someone – Renjun, even – go through his drawings. It’s unsettling, but he deals with it.

“I have something…for you,” he blurts out the moment the pressure becomes too high. Renjun twists his neck and slowly closes the sketchbook.

“Huh?”

“Yeah.”

Jeno walks over and sits by the edge of the bed. The mattress sinks under his weight and he hands him the thing he’s hidden in his dresser with a timid scrunch of features. He tries relaxing them into a smile.

“It’s my graduation gift, to you…” he explains, shaking the wrapped rectangle in the air until Renjun takes it.

There’s a sound that gets stuck in Renjun’s throat, then another one, longer, and then he says, “Wait… wait, Jeno, you didn’t have to!”

Jeno puffs a laugh and just takes Renjun’s hand – managing to push the sketchbook away and let it sit somewhere on the bed, forgotten, where it should be - and plants it there, forcing him to hold it.

“I didn’t even actually graduate…” Renjun mumbles but nevertheless sits up, crosses his legs and places the gift on his lap, twisting it a couple of times to find where to carefully peel the tape off.

Jeno waits in silence, and as he does, he waits and waits, he thinks, hey, where did all this nervousness come from today? He feels like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, with his legs, how should he place them on the bed? One by one, they become somewhat numb, and Renjun is taking so much time with unwrapping it.

He’s given him a gift before, a little drawing when they’ve just met. He has to admit, that made his heart beat fast and palms sweat a lot harder than now, so he shouldn’t complain now.

But this…

Renjun gasps.

He’s finally taken it out of the wrapping paper, just enough to see what’s inside – a recipe book – and he stares at it for a few moments, then he looks up at Jeno with those big, pretty eyes.

It’s the exact moment where time starts slowing down for the next hour or so.

“Oh my God, Jeno,” Renjun whispers. Jeno just stays there and doesn’t reply, he doesn’t know what to say, but then the next second Renjun’s arms wrap around his neck and he practically throws himself against him, quickly climbing in Jeno’s lap.

He doesn’t know how to respond to it at first, it’s so strange, but then Renjun squeaks and just hugs whatever he can find so tight it leaves Jeno breathless, swinging them both from side to side and the only thing he says is a string of happy “thank you”.

As the wave of excitement goes, Renjun stills. It gives Jeno time to adjust and observe the weight on his lap and thighs, how it feels to have Renjun there, close, closer than before, how he smells, what he looks like up close. His breaths get longer, deeper, each exhale brings him to almost close his eyes with the feeling of being content, warm. He blinks slowly, calmly.

The thought that everything’s slowing down for Renjun, too, passes his mind. Because it does look like it, Renjun looks warm and calm, starts weighing down on Jeno’s legs as he unglues his chest from his and looks him in the eye, close enough to be touching their noses together.

Renjun’s breath smells like the leftovers of the gum Jeno handed him earlier and the faintest hint of smoke, a memory of the one drag he took out of Jeno’s cigarette. He smells human, he smells like something real, like something good, and he keeps on rubbing their noses together. Renjun’s nose is round and pretty, Jeno feels as they touch, and it’s soft and delicate compared to his sharp, pointy one.

Renjun plants a kiss on his cheekbone, under his left eye.

“You’re so… good,” he whispers on Jeno’s face, moving upwards to kiss his eyebrow, then his temple. “You’re so good.”

He moves from forehead to eyelids to nose and cheek, leaving little butterfly kisses as he goes. Jeno can only sit and accept them, feel the sensation of warm skin on his own. He can’t think about anything else, everything’s on hold, everything’s slowed down.

Renjun stops right under his nose and instead of kissing there, he mumbles something, nudging Jeno’s nose with his upper lip.

“You know, if we’ve never had that book club, I wouldn’t have ever met you,” he says.

Jeno doesn’t see him speak, he just hears him; his eyes have grown heavy and shut closed a while ago.

He raises one hand, holding himself up with the other, and caresses Renjun’s cheek.

“We would’ve met either way, at some point or another,” he replies, slowly, with a bit of a lazy smile in his raspy voice. He leans in, stretching his neck and searching for the other’s lips, but Renjun stays still and continues the conversation.

“How come?” he asks almost against Jeno’s lips.

Jeno rubs their noses together one more time, then their lips, then he smiles and says, “Because life’s really good to me sometimes.”

Their lips meet, extracting a sigh out of Jeno’s throat. He feels Renjun shifting in his lap so he can raise himself up on his knees, press his chest closer to him.

The hand melts away from the cheek to Renjun’s lower back, while Renjun’s arms stay around his neck,

Jeno plays with the hem of his shirt, flicks his fingers over the belt hoop, the waistband of his underwear. Feather touches, he gently rubs his palm against everything he can reach around his lower back, feeling the heat emanating through his shirt.

It’s a fleeting thought, but Jeno realises it’s their first full, actual kiss. And there’s nothing to interrupt them, no fear to stop them.

Renjun’s lips move slowly, feel plush and sensitive, which Jeno soon finds it’s the same for his tongue, too. Wet, easy, slow.

Tastes like everything _Renjun_.

Another sigh leaves his lips and enters Renjun’s mouth, where it’s reciprocated, longer and more high pitched when Jeno pulls him closer by the hip.

They pull away for a second to catch their breaths, moment which Jeno uses to gently flip them both so that Renjun lays on his back and Jeno climbs over him, trapping his hips with one knee on each side of them. The mattress sinks, and he cups Renjun’s cheeks, both of them, and leans down to kiss him again.

This time it’s less hesitant, a bit faster – they’ve somewhat gotten used to it. Jeno feels the feathering touch of fingers on his skin just where his shirt riled up, on his hipbones. They’re not testing the waters anymore and their tongues meet every few moments, though still tender, never rushed.

They have all the time they want.

Every time he slightly pulls away, Jeno teeths at one of Renjun’s lips, pulling at it, and he makes this sound, this beautiful sound that Jeno just can’t believe he’s hearing.

Out of breath, Jeno moves to nibble slightly at his jaw. His skin is salty from sweat, and with every kiss he goes a little further down. He gets the confirmation that what he’s doing is okay when on of Renjun’s hands curl up in his hair, pushing him down a little, and so Jeno trails down, kiss after kiss, slowly, his lips mushed down on the warm, pulsating skin of Renjun’s bare neck.

Between touches he stops to press his nose against him, just to take in his smell. Renjun’s smell, natural and human and mesmerizing, warm and comforting, he smells like a sunny kitchen full of sugary cakes on a summer day.

It’s even better that the softer and more sensitive the skin is, Renjun’s sighs are more likely to turn into little whimpers.

“I like that,” he says as Jeno reaches a spot of his neck that makes the legs underneath him squirm.

“Here?” he asks, and Renjun nods above him, so he stops there and kisses, bites and laps with his tongue around the area, making sure to still go easy, mellow.

He wants to touch a little more, to explore, but can he?

“Can I,” his voice is wavy, “touch you more?”

He pulls away to look at his face, to wait for a reply.

“Where?” Renjun asks, a little wary.

“Just…” Jeno places one hand under his shirt, pressing against Renjun’s tummy without the fabric between his fingers and skin.

Renjun nods a couple of times and Jeno goes back to his neck, now letting the one hand that’s not helping him support his weight run across Renjun’s sides, Renjun’s stomach, up to Renjun’s chest, making him writhe under him.

“That tickles,” Renjun giggles.

Jeno smiles against his neck and does it again, just to tease.

“Where do you… like to be touched?” Renjun asks a little quietly. Jeno looks up and sees his glistening lips, his pink cheeks.

They both bite their own lip for a second, flustered, waiting, then Jeno takes Renjun’s hand in his and tentatively places it on his back, under his shirt.

The feel of Renjun’s fingers there is really something different…

Before he dives back in, before he closes his eyes again, Jeno catches a glimpse of Renjun’s neck and the few, little red spots splattered across it. His breath hitches and he touches one lightly with one finger.

“Oh…” he finds it hard to speak, “Oh, sorry, I’ve left some marks…”

Renjun’s eyes widen a bit. “You left hickeys?”

Jeno gives them another look.

“No, they’re more like… baby hickeys.”

That makes Renjun laugh a little. “It’s okay, I don’t mind.” He pauses a little, like he’s considering. “You can leave more, but a bit further down…”

“Yeah?”

Jeno hums against his neck, pulling at the collar of his t-shirt to reveal a little spot of unmarked and unkissed skin. His collarbone sticks out and it’s the first one Jeno goes to, to lap his tongue across between little kisses.

The hands on Jeno’s back grip tighter at this new, never before touched area, and at a particularly good little bite, Renjun’s fingernails dig into the skin.

Jeno rests his forehead on his shoulder for a moment – it feels so good, it sends fire through him, but it’s too embarrassing to ask for out loud even if it sparks pleasure.

Instead, he props himself up further and comes back to kiss his mouth, slowly, lazily, out of breath. They just sit like that, intertwined, mouthing at each other’s lips as this light, sleepy feeling washes over them.

There’s nothing better than this, Jeno comes to the conclusion, or at least there’s nothing better than this yet. He would like to, one day, look more, touch more, feel more, but for now, he could fall asleep like this, take a nap on his bed with Renjun right next to him after kissing his for so long.

Which he does, he _almost_ does. Jeno lets his head go heavy on Renjun’s shoulder, chests pressed together. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, he can hear Renjuns’, he almost lets himself slowly drift off, calm, at peace, feeling Renjun’s chest rise and fall – but then the hand that have been caressing his back all this time don’t trail their fingers up and down anymore, they trail their nails. Lightly, with no intention to hurt, just mindlessly going up and down his back, and it makes Jeno suddenly, very quietly, moan.

The hands stop for a split of second, as if surprised, then continue on, a little harder this time.

“You have a sensitive back?” Renjun asks in his hair.

Jeno just hums. His cheeks are beyond red, so much so that he feels them burn, but it’s okay, he thinks. He feels good.

They stay like that for a little longer, losing track of time until the buzzing of a text message stirs them up. Jeno takes the phone from the bed and checks.

“They’re here,” he announces. “They’re waiting downstairs.”

“Mhm, okay.”

Jeno gets up from the bed and gives Renjun a hand to grab onto to do the same.

Renjun takes his hoodie from where he left it when he first came in the room and puts it on, going with Jeno towards the hallway.

The sun is setting outside.

It’s quiet as they put on their shoes and tie the shoelaces; Jeno doesn’t really know what to say, or how to react, and time finally seems to be catching up with them, flowing at the normal pace. He feels a little vulnerable, a good vulnerable, but the type that takes all his words and leaves him to wait for Renjun to get ready in silence.

Renjun, on the other hand, as soon as he’s all done, he walks over to Jeno and gives him a short kiss on the lips, smiling.

“You’re so sweet,” Jeno mumbles as he pulls away, “sweet, like honey.”

Renjun grins and turns the key in the lock.

After walking down the building stairs, they find Mark, Donghyuck and his bike waiting outside for them.

Instead of a greeting, Mark says, “Aren’t you hot in that hoodie?”

“It’s going to get chilly at night,” Renjun replies.

Donghyuck turns to Jeno.

“See, Jeno, you should’ve brought a sweater, too. You’re going to be cold.”

Jeno rolls his eyes with a smile and doesn’t say anything.

It will get chilly, that’s for sure, just because after a really hot summer day it always gets a bit windy at night.

They start making their way across the big parking lot; they’ve chosen a relatively close place to get some food and some drinks, so that at night, when the sky is a deep shade of blue and the stars are up and Jeno starts to stumble in his walk a little they’d be close to Jeno and Donghyuck’s apartment.

They start chatting about something, but Jeno doesn’t pay much attention to their words and laughs.

He looks at each of them individually; at Donghyuck, his hell of a roommate but one of his closest friends, walking along side his bike. He’s got heart eyes for Mark, that’s completely obvious, and Jeno coos at them in his mind. Donghyuck, who buys bananas and peaches when they’re on sale and slips them in Jeno’s school bag in the morning, who bikes quickly to the pharmacy when Jeno’s tummy aches and who scolds him with every change he gets.

He’s got this huge shirt on, Jeno sees, and because he’s never seen it before, he comes to the conclusion that it belongs to Mark.

His eyes go to Mark, and he can’t help but think that he’s one of the nicest guys he’s met. The nicest guy for Donghyuck, for sure, but a good heart in general. He’s helped Jeno in the way that he knows how, through a lot of Tarot readings, palm readings, aura cleansings, and though Jeno finds them to be a bit ridiculous, he’s grateful. He even tried to make his ear work properly through hypnosis after Jeno explained to him that he’ll have to raise his voice up because _Mark, you really mumble all your words, I can’t really hear you,_ but his ear is still the same. Though, the fact that he tried was cute.

Then, his eyes follow Renjun, who’s just laughing at something Donghyuck’s saying. Jeno smiles and slightly nudges his shoulder with his own as they walk, just because.

He looks at all three of them, and he feels like the fourth, he feels like he belongs, like he’s accepted, he feels young and loved and silly and he’s going to drink a lot of glasses of wine tonight and eat fancy food because his life is good.

His life is good.

His life is good to him.

The sun is almost done with setting. The colours turn darker.

He takes Renjun’s hand in his, taking him by surprise. His hand is warm, soft, and the sleeve of the hoodie nudges at his fingers.

They come to the end of the parking lot, reaching the subway station. Instead of going down the stairs, they take a turn and walk down the lively streets.

Renjun presses closer and wraps the other arm around Jeno for a quick, loving hug as they walk.

“My big bear,” he mumbles in his shirt, just for him to hear, before pulling away. Jeno smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the author is about to get sappy and sentimental:  
> hello! this is the end of this little story that i've been writing, planning and thinking about for about 4 months now. truthfully, this was a little rough for me to write, especially in the beginning, but i've learned and felt so many new things in the process of putting this work together, it's amazing for me.  
> i'm writing this little last note because i want to say one last thing.  
> i started writing this story because i was a bit in renjun's place, i was completely lost and suddenly anxious about everything. every character that i've written here has something that i relate to, and the whole starting point for hallway, honey was that for a period of time i lost my passion for drawing and making art, which felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to me. so i started thinking about this story as a way to make myself feel better, to see things clearer, to give myself some advice through the other characters... it really helped seeing someone else, though fictional, going through similar things as me. 4 months and a lot of mental work later, i refound my joy for drawing and i've found ways to relieve the stress a bit.  
> if you're ever feeling like you'd relate to renjun from this story, i hope you remember my story. maybe you could bake a cake to feel less anxious. if you're lost, baking is a great solution.  
> something else i want to share is that when you let go, you create space for something new. a few days ago i was in my yoga class and i suddenly had this thought, because i was anxious about finishing this story and letting it go. if something you're really anxious about comes up, you'll learn to deal with it on the spot, to live with it. im both happy and sad that there's no more renjun and jeno to write for hallway, honey. but this is a happy ending.  
> i think i just felt the need to write something soft, heartwarming, natural and with no drama or angst as i was in a pretty sad place to begin with. i wanted something calm. and im so so so happy that people felt that, that ive warmed some hearts and put some smiles on some people's faces. this is so rewarding, and thank you so much for leaving kudos and comments, each comment means the world to me.  
> either way! ive been rambling, but i think im allowed to, as this is the end of the story ive worked on with much love for all these months. i hope youre good. i hope maybe you've learned something from here, or felt something good. i know i did.  
> thank you so much again. i will be back soon with new little stories :) stay tuned  
> this is the end for hallway, honey.  
> do not worry, renjun and jeno fall in love happily and easily and their life is good, so good.
> 
> (should i do a little self promo? i'm opening a shop with stickers and art prints, most of them nct dream related, so i thought it was fitting to share here. if you want you can find it at @lemonpiestationeryshop on instagram)
> 
> Edit: ive also made an account where i post "behind the scenes" stuff, sneak peaks and all things related to me writing. I hope we can connect there as well :) @yellodiarypages on instagram 
> 
> thank you for you time spent here!!!!!


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